Going Global
There’s an exciting trend building in the worldwide crewed charter market.
I say this based on the response I received from management companies this week for an article I’m writing about exciting charter yachts for the winter 2007 season. I asked fleet managers from Fort Lauderdale to Monaco to tell me which yachts they think are going to be the “hottest” come Christmastime. Every other year that I’ve written this feature, almost all of the yachts the companies suggested were available exclusively in the Caribbean.
This year, though, only one management company suggested that I review a Caribbean-based yacht. The rest of the ideas involved yachts that will be cruising in Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, the Maldives, the Seychelles, Western Mexico, Costa Rica and Panama.
What a fabulous sign that crewed yacht charter is, indeed, starting to spread out beyond the traditional Caribbean and Mediterranean cruising grounds. Indeed, yachts are becoming available literally worldwide–with more and more cruising off the beaten path every year.
I couldn’t be happier about this continuing trend. The more places yachts are available for charter, the more people will want to charter again and again–and the more options we’ll have for luring even more charter guests off the big cruise ships and into the vacations of their lifetimes.