Strong interest
Attendance up at New Zealand’s largest on-water boat show.
04 October 2018
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The New Zealand boating industry is reporting increased numbers at the country’s largest on- water boat show, as well as a qualified buying audience.
The show saw a 12% increase in visitors number compared to last year’s gate figures.
“We suspected we’d see strong visitor numbers this year,” says organiser Stacey Cook. “That was based on a few factors, including increasing interest in boating with the approach of the America’s Cup, a number of new innovations, trailer boat and RIB releases at the show, and a record number of large luxury vessels on display.”
The Palm Beach Motor Yacht’s PB55 is one of those large luxury vessels and is the first Palm Beach model ever seen in New Zealand.
“It’s a show where you can source not only a boat,” continues Cook.”But everything you need to go into the boat, service it, and enjoy it, and our audience tells us that one-stop aspect of the show is very helpful to them. What we’re pleased to hear from our exhibitors this year is that the show visitors have been an engaged, ready-to-buy audience.”
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Maritimo’s Tom Barry-Cotter said the Australian builder had seen a number of sales across the range, commenting it was “the best Auckland show for us in years”.
“We had a great response to the X-Series debut and a lot of interest in the performance of Maritimos – particularly their sea-going ability after bringing the boats across on their own bottoms. It’s been one of the top-performing shows this year so far,” he said.
Team Windcraft had a range of sailing yachts on display. New Zealand manager, Dominic Lowe, said the dealership sold its stock boat from the stand, received two more orders and had some strong enquiries to follow up on.
Stacey Cook says the show team was thrilled with the results of this year’s show.
“Our remit is to showcase the marine industry and help businesses flourish, so hearing from exhibitors the market felt strong, and they’ve received good quality enquiries is exactly what we want.”
This was the last year the show will be held in the ANZ Viaduct Events Centre for the foreseeable future. The centre has no been turned over to Emirates Team New Zealand to create their headquarters for the upcoming America’s Cup campaign.
From next year the show will shift slightly to spread around the Viaduct Harbour in the heart of Auckland’s marine precinct.
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