Why We’re News to You
I taped an hour-long interview yesterday with a radio station out in California for a program called “The Good Life” that will air in about three weeks. The show’s host spent nearly the entire hour asking me questions about yacht charter vacations until he got to the ultimate question, the one so many people ask me after finding CharterWave or reading my book Have the Whole Boat for the first time:
Why in the world haven’t I ever heard of this vacation option before?
As I told him, the answer is simple. There is no lobbying group organized to promote the idea of charter yacht vacations. CharterWave is the first mass-market attempt to bring the option of chartering to the general public’s attention.
He was a bit incredulous, so I explained this in comparison with the cruise ship industry. Its main corporations sponsor a group called CLIA– the Cruise Lines International Association–that spends millions upon millions of dollars a year in advertising and lobbying to ensure that potential customers think about cruise ships first when it comes to seagoing vacations.
The charter industry doesn’t have such a champion. It’s composed of individual people who own private boats. The main companies in the charter industry simply haven’t yet begun working together to promote the idea of charter in general. Heck, they’re just now coming onboard with the idea of supporting an editorial product like CharterWave.
I hope this will change in the future, of course, but until then, CharterWave remains the only place dedicated to reporting on and supporting the worldwide charter yacht industry. That’s why you haven’t heard of charter before. And why we’re so happy to make your acquaintance now.