TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums Charter Boat Reviews and Questions recession and charter boats

what did the recession do or what is it still doing to charter boat rentals/ and ownership in BVI and st martin??.
was in a marina last week and it looked full, that is all the boats were tied up at the dock, few departures and the base said 2 returns.

Has the estimated per cent rented time changed on the financial projection sheets, compared to 06?

The charter market never really dipped too much as once sailing is in your blood you return. I think all the companies are doing well. What did change in the charter market is the flood of new boats slowed to a trickle as people couldn't get financing. This has caused the resale on used charter boats to plunge, which has allowed older better quality boats to stay in smaller fleets (Provalor, BVI YC, Conch) and some prices to drop.

The villa rental market tanked, but has slowly recovered. People that rent villas unless they are truly in love with a place travel for the deal and may not care which island they are on. The villas also are hurting by the number of available on the market to rent, just look at Anegada and there are many (relative term) more available. But the transportation has made it a pain in the backside to come to BVI, so why not rent somewhere easier to get to. This is my unprofessional and just experience. Others I am sure will have there own unique slant on how they were inpacted.

Sailn, based on your last post, I believe you were looking at a marina in St. Martin. We've sailed many times in the BVI and once each in St. Martin, Antigua and St. Vincent/Grenadines. My impression is that those other bases had less charter activity in general than the BVI. I think if you ask BVI charter companies, you'll hear that business did decline during the recession but has largely recovered now. When we're down in the BVI now, it seems quite busy. Also, charter activity in St. Martin may be suffering from the ongoing economic malaise in Europe. It probably draws a higher % of business from there than the BVI does.