We haven’t seen this before – we now have a deal where you can cross the Atlantic Ocean, from Rodney Bay, St Lucia to Alcudia, Mallorca – total charter fee only EUR 6000! The boat is a nice, new (2008) Bavaria 50 cruiser with 5 cabins and 3 heads. Includes GPS, plotter, autopilot, radar, Epirb, SSB, bowthruster, dingy with outboard.
This charter is for 6 weeks – 17th of April – 29th of May 2010.
So this is your chance. If you’ve dreamed about it, now you can do it!
This is the time of year that our charter operators begin setting pricing for the next year. As we’ve written before, our expectation was that after a difficult 2009, there is a very good chance that prices will go up, anywhere between 5- 10% on many charter yachts. From the price lists we’ve seen so far from the first operators to send out their new rates, this is in fact happening.
The good news for you is that these prices normally don’t hit until January, or if they have been raised already you can often get early booking discounts. So, if you’re looking for a charter in 2010, we recommend you contact us soon!
No crowds, great weather, fantastic food, culture everywhere, and a relaxed lifestyle. All this and more in wonderful Croatia.
There are lots of last minute charter deals available in Croatia this fall with discounts of up to 30 % on some beautiful boats. You can see the best Croatia Special Deals here, or simply contact Boatbookings.com for a complete list and discussion about the best boat for you.
Everyone asks us how the summer went and what is going on in the charter market these days, so here are our views on the market and and a few of our expectations for the remainder of the year.
About midway through July, demand for Mediterranean charters picked up dramatically – last minute charters came out of the woodwork and we’ve been inundated ever since. Anecdotal stories from other industries such as villa rentals generally say that same thing. People wanted deals, but in the end they still wanted a great holiday, despite the recession.
We believe that there is much more confidence amongst charterers, and that this will continue into the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Asia/Pacific high seasons from December through April. We’ve seen our traffic and enquiries accelerate (more than double from last September when the world was falling apart) and our operators in the Caribbean say that Christmas and New Years availability is becoming scarce. If you’re planning a charter during this peak period in the Caribbean, especially the BVI, then best to contact Boatbookings.com soon to discuss the boats that are remaining (we’ve created a nice listing of BVI Yacht Charter Availability here. Unfortunately, with the rebound in the economy, the possibility of “deals” during this peak period is dramatically diminished.
We’ve also seen a significant pick-up in demand for the Indian Ocean – especially in the Seychelles and Maldives. Because these are longer haul destinations, they seem to be picking up a bit more slowly, so there is still good availability, but if the current trend continues we wouldn’t recommend waiting until the last minute and looking for deals, or you may be disappointed.
Thailand got hit with a double whammy at the end of 2008. Just as the world economy was falling apart, the Bangkok international airport was closed by political protesters, heavily impacting the tourism sector in general. This lead to much lower demand in the first half of 2009, and some amazing charter deals being available to counteract all the bad publicity.
But just as our Asia Charter Manager was starting to wonder if the world was still in love with Thailand, July/August has seen a dramatic rise in enquiries and bookings for Thailand charters. As Europeans return from their summer vacations, we expect this increase in demand to continue. In fact, like every year, most cats are already booked up many months in advance for the peak periods of Christmas and New Year in Phuket.
As for the Mediterranean next summer – it’s anybody’s guess, but we certainly expect that next summer will be significantly stronger than this year, so don’t expect the type of deals that we were seeing this year. It may sound self serving, but the best way to guarantee the current prices and get a bit of a discount as well is to get an early booking discount – which generally means booking your summer charter before the end of the year.
We believe that mobile computing will fundamentally change the yacht charter market, and the entire yachting business as well. Amazing products such as the iphone and blackberry, which essentially are small mobile computers, provide the ideal platform for delivering timely information about yachts and yachting. And they’re only going to get better!
If you are with friends planning a charter, you should be able to research boats together, contact the broker, reserve a boat and flights, look at weather patterns and research itineraries, all while sharing a beer at a local watering hole. This is our goal, and we have released the first version of our iPhone app designed to provide exactly these features.
The initial version of the Boatbookings iPhone app, the first in the industry, allows you to track special offers to find great deals, search the entire database of boats for charter, and even calculate CO2 emissions from your voyage. The App is free, and downloadable immediately. Just go to iTunes and search for boat bookings, and you’ll find it!
About the App
Using our simple search page, you can find the right boat for your next charter, and actually book it on your iPhone! You can also track our special deals, and calculate and your carbon footprint from the charter. Over time, we will be adding many new features for charter enthusiasts of all types. Below is a description of the current features.
YACHT CHARTER SPECIAL DEALS
See real time the best yacht charter deals available – special prices, reductions, cheap one-way offers, and unique availabilities on hundreds of yachts.
SEARCH FOR YOUR YACHT
Choose the type of boat (motor, sail, catamaran), crew type (bareboat or crewed), and location of the boat you want, and then pull in the search results from over 6000 boats on the Boatbookings.com website. You can see complete yacht information, including images, specifications, descriptions, pricing and real time availability. From there you can make an enquiry directly on your iPhone.
CALCULATE YOUR CO2 EMISSIONS
This nifty tool allows you to enter your hourly fuel consumption and determine your carbon footprint from your charter. It also tells you how much it would cost to offset the emissions so the you can charter your boat carbon neutral! This is the first tool of its kind for the Yacht Charter industry, and the first on the iPhone.
COMING SOON
Soon you will have a map-based application so that you can calculate distances, routes, timing and costs from your next boating itinerary.
So download the Boatbookings.com app, and plan your next charter on your iPhone!
