subject: What Is The Prospect For The Indian Yachting Industry? By Simon J Arrolan Interview With Simon J Arr [print this page] Definitions: A "yacht" is a vessel used primarily for pleasure. Hence "motor yacht" and "sailing yacht".
A "marina" is a harbour that is purpose-designed for yachts.
Many international commentators throw scorn at the importance of the Indian yachting market, but as with so many things in life it all comes down to the power of numbers. With an economic growth of over 7%, when the rest of the world is reeling, and the growing appetite for luxury goods - India is suddenly in everyones radar. As for the age old argument, that everyone in India is poor, one only needs to do the math - even if only 1 in every 10,000 people were to consider buying a boat, that would represent over a 100,000 potential boat owners. This is almost exactly the same as the total number of pleasure boats longer than 7.5 meters in the whole of the UK . The fact is that anyone who can afford to buy an imported motorcar can certainly consider buying a boat. And the boat will almost certainly give him/her more pleasure.
But it is lack of infrastructure that is presently constraining the growth of the yachting industry. We can draw on the development of the automobile industry for comparison.. The growth of the automobile ancillary industry was critical in the development of the industry. Yet with yachting in India the present situation is the antithesis of this. Yachts are being bought but there are very few facilities for berthing and servicing them. So why is this?
Although a motor-car manufacturer can find premises for workshops and stores relatively easily, the yachting sector struggles to find land suitable for marinas and repair yards. Why? Because most of the coastline, especially in urban areas, is controlled by the State or by the Port Trusts, and their statutory procedures make the identification, allocation, and permitting of land and water for marinas and repair yards an extremely slow process. The permitting procedures, rather than funding, is where the bottleneck lies. Generally speaking, the private sector can be relied upon to finance marinas and repair yards, but in most cases the availability of suitable land and water sites is entirely in the hands of the statutory authorities.
This then begs the question, is the yachting industry worth supporting? Well here are some comparable from the UK with its population of a mere 61 million (i.e. only 5% of the size of India's) and rather inclement weather. The statistics come from the British Marine Federation's surveys for 2007/2008.
Industry revenue for the leisure and small commercial marine industry in the UK in 2007/2008 was 23,250 crore rupees.
In addition to the industry revenue, the economic benefits of tourism-related spend in the UK was estimated to be a further 16,500 crore rupees.
Total employees in the UK estimated to be 35,200 full-time equivalent.
The wider economic benefits of the 238 coastal marinas in the UK and the Channel Islands resulted in an estimated 5,250 crore rupees value of added contributions.
So the potential for India's yachting industry is huge, but it is dependent on infrastructure. And infrastructure means marinas and repair yards.
