Brokers, Owners and Your Best Interest
I had an interesting back-and-forth yesterday with the owner of a charter yacht that I have known for several years, and whose operation I respect. This yacht owner has invested a great deal of time in making a website where you can go to book a vacation directly, without the use of a charter broker.
The owner expressed, well, exasperation with my continually urging CharterWave readers to do the opposite by always booking through a reputable charter broker.
“This is the only business in the world,” the yacht owner said, “where a person can develop a product that’s good but isn’t supposed to market it directly to the public.”
I can understand how frustrating this must be to the yacht owner, but it is, in my opinion, the reality of the charter vacation business. If I were to book this particular yacht–which I know to be on the up-and-up–I would do so through a charter broker. I wouldn’t even give it a second thought.
The reason is that when you book a yacht charter, you are signing a contract and exchanging money with the person who owns the yacht. The owner is, by definition, usually somebody who has far deeper pockets than you do. If something should go wrong during your charter, you’re going to need someone on your side to help you get your due from the yacht owner. That someone is a reputable charter broker, whose job is not just to help plan your vacation, but also to ensure that your legal and financial interests are protected.
There are a good number of yacht owners out there (not to mention more than a few websites) working very hard to cut reputable charter brokers out of the business. From my perspective, this will accomplish nothing beyond damaging the industry itself. When people who can afford a $20,000-per-week vacation enter into a business arrangement with a person who owns a $5-million charter yacht, there needs to be a system of checks and balances in place to keep things fair. There needs to be a middleman. The financial resources each party brings to the table are simply too disparate to trust to goodwill alone.
The system of checks and balances that has evolved during the past few decades centers around reputable charter brokers, who do a pretty good job of keeping charter yacht owners honest. That’s why we’ll continue to connect you with them here on CharterWave–and why, hopefully, good yachts like the one whose owner contacted me will respect the idea that they should continue to work with them in the future.