New yacht-show owners stepping up marketing

COURTESY MEDIA PRO INTERNATIONAL/BILLY BLACK
HOME AT SEA: The lavish on-deck living spaces onboard Lia Fail exemplify those on super yachts featured at the charter show in Newport.
COURTESY MEDIA PRO INTERNATIONAL/BILLY BLACK HOME AT SEA: The lavish on-deck living spaces onboard Lia Fail exemplify those on super yachts featured at the charter show in Newport.

As if Newport won’t be bustling enough this coming summer with the America’s Cup World Series in June and the Tall Ships in July, the Newport Charter Yacht Show will attract its own unique group of sailing specialists to the City by the Sea.
The five-day charter show run by the Newport Harbor Corp. June 18-22 is one of the few like it in the world. Geared to charter-yacht brokers rather than the general public, it is the largest show of its kind on the East Coast and the only one in New England, organizers say. The show features luxury super yachts from 80 to 275 feet long.
The NHC, perhaps best known as the owner and operator of high-end restaurants such as Hemenway’s in Providence and The Mooring in Newport, acquired the assets of the charter show from Newport Yacht Management Company in October for an undisclosed sum.
Tom DeLotto, director of the Newport Exhibition Group that remains in charge of the show under Newport Harbor, pointed out that the harbor group’s business interests extend beyond eateries. It is involved in various marine-related activities, he said, including ownership of the Newport Yachting Center where the charter show will be held, as it has for the last three years.
The harbor group chose to acquire the charter show because the event fills a “significant vacuum” or niche in the New England marine world, DeLotto said. “This is the only large charter-yacht show on the East Coast and in New England,” he added, citing similar shows in Antigua in the Caribbean and Genoa, Italy, in the Mediterranean.
Selling yachts is not the goal of the show.
“There may be a sale here or there, but that is not what we are all about. Our platform is the charter business,” DeLotto said, explaining private brokers will check out the new offerings with an eye toward finding the right choices for clients chartering yachts for a limited time. “This is not a normal show for the public,” he added. “The only members of the public to be there might be clients invited by a broker.”
The NHC has the resources, DeLotto noted, to expand certain aspects of the show such as a seminar series held at the same time and various social engagements intended to ease networking of brokers and yacht dealers. One definite change this year is an enhanced marketing effort.
Plans are in the works to promote the show among those who are not familiar with the specialized event. “We will be marketing to groups that may not have ever come to the Newport Charter Yacht Show before and maybe never came to Newport before,” DeLotto said. The idea is to introduce new yachts and sailors to the show and the yachting center, with an eye toward expanding business on a long-range basis. Located in downtown Newport, the yachting center is visited every year by about 3 million people and can accommodate social groups of between 20 to 20,000 people.
“Marketing to the necessary industry players such as charter brokers, captains, owners and management companies will get the best showing of charter yachts and will entice the top charter brokers in the world to attend,” said Jan Henry, president of the American Yacht Charter Association and a charter broker with Fraser Yachts Florida Inc.
DeLotto could not say yet how many luxury yachts the June show will feature, but 3,000 linear feet of dock space has been set aside, he said, enough to accommodate 10 100-foot yachts, for instance. Vessels also can tie up in dock areas near the yachting center and still take part in the show.
Separate from the show, the market for luxury yacht sales worldwide right now “is not expanding as in the past, but it is still strong,” DeLotto said. There is no question that Rhode Island’s policy of waiving the 7 percent sales tax on boats is “nothing but good for the boating industry in general,” he said.
DeLotto said he personally is “pleased” that Newport Harbor has taken over the charter show and exhibition group because, as a worker-owned business, Newport Harbor is “very employee-focused.” The group also is responsible for the two other major boat shows in Rhode Island, the Newport International Boat Show and the Providence Boat Show, both of which are open to the general public. &#8226

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