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There has been a sharp growth in the nautical sector of all Europe, especially in the Mediterranean area: 70% of European yachtsmen are concentrated in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Europe offers a perfect environment for more than 48 million of European yachtsmen, together with the non-EU nautical tourists. Recreational vessels stationed in European waters exceed 6 million, compared to the 4.500 marinas which offer 1.75 million of moorings, according to the “CNA Research on Dynamics and Market Perspectives of the Nautical Industry of Yachting”.
Despite these figures, the mooring market of the last years has suffered from a severe stagnation. In 2015 there were some signs of recovery – the amount of moorings has grown on average by 7.7%. Also, transits compared to 2014 have increased by 3.3%, with the mooring demand coming more from motorboats (60.4%) than sailing boats (34.1%).
Generally, tourist port market is experiencing an acceleration. This is shown by the new ports which are being constructed almost everywhere in the Mediterranean Sea, and by the resulting increase in moorings: the amount of their transits is particularly concentrated in the Tyrrhenian area (70%), while the remaining 30% is distributed among all the other nautical regions.
This improvement is due partly to the exceptional weather conditions of the summer season, partly to the recovery of the used boat market and also, partly to the economic maneuvers led by the governments in order to incentivize a market that had been repressed by taxes and bureaucracy.
However, as far as Italy is concerned, nautical market is still not so brilliant compared to other countries, despite all these positive data. One of its worst disadvantages is the clientele polarization, in addition to bureaucracy.
The nautical sector is still tied to traditional systems. Worldwide, a boat entering in a foreign port is bound to a long list of restrictions and duties: from a report to local authorities, to the registration of all the documents needed for the permanence in local waters, up to the inspection on board.
These are the fulfilments which take lots of time, energy and printed material that, with the transition to digital devices, could be easily avoided. For this very reason, the Mediterranean area is launching an important initiative, of MarinaNow along with Navigodigitale, which promote a challenging project of a digital platform aimed at providing the Mediterranean ports with a perfect computerization system of the document exchanges needed by yachts during the entering and exiting phases.
The advantages include saving up to 80% of time, disposal of almost 2000 sheets of paper in each office, better traceability and real-time questions check, the possibility of accessing an always orderly paperwork archive, and the possibility of making online payments directly.
