Yacht.com Blog

This blog post was supposed to be about a beautiful wooden yacht that is on the brokerage market up in Lake George.  That’s all fantastic to hear about (and you can still find the story here), but I suspect many of you might find more use in the back story of how the presence of a boat like this on the web can be influenced and enhanced by all of our new social media tools.

Two days ago, an very Internet savvy marine entrepreneur, Guy Mitriano, who is one of the founders of Burlington Boatyard started following YachtDotCom on Twitter.  He sent us a message about this particular Windsor Craft 36 that is being sold through Boats by George that he has offered to help ‘get out there’ in some new and atypical ways in terms of the brokerage world.  I looked into it, found Guys’ blog article about the boat, also found an interview on YouTube about the boat and then was able to find the broker and Burlington Boatyards website.  I could have simply blogged here about it, or pointed a link to Guys’ post about it, but knowing the appeal of these types of unique stunners in the yachting world, I figured this yacht might benefit a larger and more suited audience.  I sent along the information to my friend John Burnham, who is the editor of Yachtworld.com and Boats.com and happens to also pen their blog.  [John and I are also LinekdIn... in case you wanted to know another useful tool we use on the internet to pass along information.]

As luck would have it, John found the story interesting to their readers and it appears today on the boats.com blog.  Who would have guessed that a little Twitter message from Guy to Yacht.com could have generated a whole little write up on Boats.com.  John and Guy have spoken and now more Lake Champlain-related content might be appearing there (as well as here) as they celebrate their 400th year of boating on the lake.

As our Yacht.com community develops, this is just one small example of how a boats have a life on the web – and how we can use the tools out there to help promote and highlight them.  The moral of the story is don’t be afraid to use these social media tools, get out here and find creative ways your boat might reach more eyes on the Internet – you never know who might be paying attention.  Look for more inter-activity here in the coming months and years!

Today marked the opening of the 17th Annual Dubai International Boat Show.  This largest yacht event in the Middle East has been gaining popularity among the super yacht crowd as well as some international manufacturers who recognize the wealth available and natural market demand due to all of the marine amenities being developed in the region and the amount of waterfront property that has been built and snatched up by the worlds richest.  There are major partnerships between the event organizers and the New Zealand marine trades exhibitors to help boost the island-nations critical and struggling export market.  The DIBS website states that the show has grown in exhibitors again this year and that all of the marina dockspace has been filled with boats for sale and on exhibit – a statement organizers of every other boat show in the world have not been able to make in 2009.

Still, it seems some of the news coming from the region is that incentives are required – with Island Global Yachting Group offering an incentive for any yacht purchased at the show to be guaranteed one of their exclusive slips at the newly opening Anchor Marina, a pretigious high profile dockspace in Dubai.  Furthermore, any visitor to their booth who fills out an enquiry card is given a free weeks dockage.  We’ve seen some creative and aggressive incentive packages to help move inventory and keep the flow of sales moving with shows in the US this year.  Is it accurate to say that even in one of the wealthiest luxury-goods buying regions of the world – the buyers are still needing incentive to pull out their checkbooks?  We’ll see the reports on attendance and sales after the show closes next week and see how 2009 has stacked up for DIBS.