IS ITALIAN BOATING RECOVERING?

How’ s Italian boating? The great boat shows’ season has just finished and it’s time to take stock. To do that, we can use “Boating in Numbers“,the traditional report issued by Ucina and Edison every year.

We already told you some weeks ago that signs are encouraging and operators start to be moderately optimistic. But let’s see some essential numbers.

Here are the main indicators which tell the Italian boating’s trend between 2014 and 2015.

Overall turnover 2.90 billion euros (+ 17.1%)
Domestic production (Italy) : 0.55 billion euros (+13.1%)
Italian market: 0.95 billion euros (+ 21.3%)
Real operators 18.130 (+ 3.0%)
Contribution to GDP 1,75‰ ( + 19.0%)

So, positive numbers, especially as concerns the growing trend (and the first data of 2016, compared to 2015, seem to confirm them with a remarkable increase in the overall turnover, according to what said by Carla de Maria, president of Ucina, at the end of Genoa Boat Show) after a flat trend between 2012 and 2013 and a terrible crisis since 2009.

The main contribution comes from yards, which generate over the half of the sector’s turnover (55%), followed by accessories (29%), engines (9%), refitting, reparations and garaging (7%).

As regards the geographical allocation of turnover, 65% comes from foreign markets, 19% from the national market while 16% comes from importations.

One among the most encouraging factors is that the Italian market has contributed to the overall turnover with 950 million euros, marking a +21.3% than 2014 and reversing the negative trend of the last few years.

One of the best sectors concerns sailing boats (55,192,000 euros as global market) which registered a remarkable + 73%, even though over 40% comes from importations.

According to UCINA, the real workers in the sector are 16,750 (they were 16,400 last year), almost the half of whom are employed in the production and importation of new units. External workers are almost 2000 (1,800 in 2014) and they generally work for an average period of about 9 months, while over 65% of them are employed for more than 11 months a year.

Finally, Italians confirm to love motorboats: 80.5 % of the vessels registered are motorboats, 19.3 % are sailing boats while 0.2 % is represented by recreational ships (more than 24 m long).