Despite the slow improvements showing in the economy around the globe the super yacht industry continues to show signs that all is not well.
While many brokers are keen to point out how well they are doing and how the growth in sales is proving that the industry is still it seems doggedly determined to shoot its self in the foot with issuing cheap eye catching charter discounts that show the opposite is in fact the case.
In a single day, news desks such as ours have been bombarded by offers of discounts that show that some owners are getting quite desperate.
One owner has offered to pay the first 500 litres of fuel used by guests chartering his 50 metre yacht that charters from £125,000 per week. Another is offering a 36 metre high speed motor yacht at a price open to negotiation where normally prices start at £80,000 a week. Not only that, the same boat is prepared to charter without charging for a repositioning voyage. That same central agency is offering retail charter brokers an additional bonus of £1300 over and above their usual 15% commission if they manage to secure a one week charter on a 30 metre yacht cruising in Croatia or the Ionian seas. That charter typically costs around £46,000 a week.
With the decision by France to impose VAT on charters beginning in France it is clear that the super yacht charter industry is not yet out of the woods but perhaps one way of helping it do so might be to stop giving the impression it is at deaths door