Ukraine: War did not freeze luxury boat charters

Despite the concerns posed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 2022 is expected to be a pretty good year for yachting in Greece, with charters already exceeding the levels of 2021. This is stated by industry players, emphasizing that if the Russian-Ukrainian war had not broken out which dampened interest from Russia and Ukraine and at the same time caused a slight freeze in demand from other markets and especially the US this year would be a record in bookings of luxury yachts.

This optimism was confirmed in the first days of the exhibition of manned yachts in Nafplio (7th Mediterranean Yacht Show-MEDYS 2022) organized by the Hellenic Maritime Tourism Association (GYA) in collaboration with the Municipality of Nafplio, in which 90 very large yachts were presented.

The president of the Maritime Tourism Association Michalis Skoulikidis speaking at the opening of the exhibition said that the 7th MEDYS is a major event, the largest yachting charter exhibition in the world in terms of number and length of participating boats.

“In Greece, tourism is a “heavy industry” and fortunately it is growing. The vanguard that is maritime tourism, benefits from the islands, the coasts, the unique seas and the amazing weather. That is why Greece is rightly considered the yachting paradise by the whole world “, he added, and hastened to emphasize that this year will be better than last year. An equally good year, where the market covered from 65% to 100% of 2019 depending on the category of yachts.

The recent law

According to Mr. Skoulikidis, this shows the absolute proficiency of boats with Greek professional license in quantity and quality and that “we have no need for help from boats with a foreign flag.” At this point, he underlined his opposition to regulations of the recent law for yachts that create as he supported unfair competition from foreign flag boats to boats with Greek professional license. “There will be an escape of boats over 35 meters from the Greek professional license and the Greek flag,” he estimated.

For the further development of maritime tourism, noted people in the industry, there should be additional promotional activities such as the participation of EOT in sectoral exhibitions abroad for manned boats, the advertising of Greek maritime tourism in international specialized publications by EOT, the active participation of the Maritime Tourism Association, which also has the knowledge of the international yachting market, in the decisions for the distribution of this advertisement.