From the 11th to the 14th May 2017, Viareggio will be the world capital of the nautical excellence industry with the first Versilia Yachting Rendez-vous. A new event dedicated to big yachts and everything gravitating towards them, from tenders to the lifestyle that goes along with the luxury recreational boating, including design, food, art and fashion.
The appointment has been presented today in Viareggio by Fiera Milano, in its first experience with a yachting event, together with Distretto Tecnologico per la Nautica e la Portualità Toscana (Technological Department for Boat and Port Industry in Tuscany), Navigo, Navicelli Pisa Spa and Consorzio Tecnologico Magona. Strategic partner of the event is Nautica Italiana, the association grouping Italian shipyards and boat companies, affiliated with Altagamma Foundation.
The conference was institutionally chaired by the Mayor of Viareggio, Giorgio Del Ghingaro, and the president of Regione Toscana, Enrico Rossi.
The intention of the event is to show the world the excellences the boat industry is able to produce in Versilia and, in general, in Italy through a selected circle of exhibitors (not more than 50) and a hundred boats exhibited in water.
As a corollary, four thematic areas will be dedicated to the needs of the XL yachts: Tender&Toys, for the manufacturers of technological service boats and other accessories; Italian Coast Excellence, gathering a wide range of on-board services; Superyacht Marina, reserved for marinas, port facilities and their services; Superyacht Equipment and Component, with a selection of boat accessories manufacturers.
The initiative is supported by mayor Del Ghingaro, which seems to have finally married Viareggio and the local boat industry: “Forget the past and give value to the port, even with the works necessary to adjust it to the needs of large yachts, in order to let Viareggio return the centre of world attention,” the first citizen said.
Vincenzo Poerio, President of Distretto tecnologico per la nautica e la portualità toscana, highlighted the extent of the message living from the Versilia Yachting Rendez-vous “It’s an event created to bring boat industry and Versilia to the world so that all the activities connected to boat industry can export their products and skills. We have to stay in Viareggio and bring our arms and hands in the world”.
Paolo Borgio, managing director of third parties and sponsorships, explained the involvement of Fiera Milano: ” Fiera Milano is linked to other six sectors which organize exhibitions concerning fashion, design, food and much more with us”, he said, “we called this event rendez-vous because it’s an experience involving the excellence and the quality expressed by the territory of Tuscany and Versilia in particular. The exhibition will, in fact, include some events linked to lifestyle and fashion which will be held in Forte dei Marmi and Pietrasanta, too”.
According to Borgio, about 35 thousand visitors will join the event with a consequent direct turnover of about 6.5 million euros.
The dates, at the beginning of the summer season, bring the event out in a period unloaded of the events of the sector, generally concentrated in September. The formula of the event, too, is unusual: only 4 days, from Thursday to Sunday, from 11:00 to 21:30 and with two types of tickets: full day, deliberately sold at the non-popular price of 25 euros; and 12 euros after 18:00.
Yachts will be hosted in the two mooring basins along Via Coppino, the Walk of Fame for luxury recreational yachting: Yacht Darsena Italia, for boats of over 35 m, and Darsena Europa, for ribs and smaller boats.
A series of thematic events will be held during the four-day event. The first will be dedicated to design and will gather boat interior and leather designers; the second event will be dedicated to food, with the participation of the Italian chef Carlo Cracco. The third day will focus on art and vintage cars while Sunday will be the day of both fashion and lifestyle.
Nautica Italiana Chairman, Lamberto Tacoli, highlighted the great commitment of the association to create “an exclusive high-end boat show addressed not only to our members but to the whole shipbuilding industry. Why do people say that Italy can’t have two big boat shows? In France, where production figures are much lower than ours, when I started to follow boating 25 years ago, there wasn’t a real international boat show. Today, France hosts 5 successful boating events”. “We’re really stepping forward – he added citing the words of the Mayor Del Ghingaro – towards beauty and we’re trying to restore our sector’s dignity. To do so, we also have to show ourselves: it’s absurd, it’s true, but we have the product and lack the packaging. It’s also a step to the capacity to work in an integrated way, which has always been a challenge for us. Something has started here and this was inevitable for a city like Viareggio. I would like that, in the not-too-distant future, we could see under the sign of the Viareggio motorway exit the writing: Yachting city.
At the end of the press conference, Enrico Rossi, President of Regione Toscana, showed the institutional attention to the boat industry, highlighting the structural interventions aimed to ease the work of the local recreational boat industry, such as the arrangement of the Navicelli Channel and the creation of a penetration axis to move yachts from the coast to hinterland.
” The Region has willingly joined the initiative of an international event – he president said – aimed to promote the best of the shipbuilding production in Tuscany and it will support it strongly. And it could not be otherwise, considering the national and international importance of the Tuscan boat industry”. “In our region – he added -boat industry counts on 15,000 operators (more than one third of the Italian ones) and 2,900 companies involved in different sectors, from manufacturing to refitting, services and tourism.
With 1.5 billions euros, turnover represents 45% of the Italian sector’s one and a fourth of yachts sailing the world are made in Tuscany. These are the numbers of our excellence and it seems to me natural that Versilia, which is the heartbeat of this productive district of excellence, hosts an event which wants to promote its features, products and the entrepreneurial and manufacturing skills of its workers. So, we are pleased to welcome the Versilia Yachting Rendez-Vous which will certainly be an efficient lever to make this sector grow that we specifically support because it adds value and doesn’t take resources away.
Of course, the event also benefits from a considerable financial support of about 10,000 euros. After all, it would be unthinkable that an event like this, at its first edition, was supported by just one private. Then, the above-mentioned direct profitability of the rendez-vous in the territory should have already showed that this money has been spent well”.
