Darren Vaux, the President of ICOMIA was the keynote speaker. Keen to engage with the emerging yachting communities of Southeast Asia, his inspirational presentation outlined his views on the future of the leisure marine industry. “I am going to start with a simple premise: boating enriches people’s lives and simply being in, on or around water changes your perception, promotes calm, reduces stress, and promotes an overall sense of wellbeing. We are in this industry, we understand that, but the reality is that we need to change people’s perspective about our industry.”

“So how do we do it? We need governments to understand that we have a significant industry that contributes over US$300bn to the global economy. The leisure boat industry is also a significant tourist generator, and we should use education vs regulation to be proactive in developing the industry without too many regulation hurdles to cross. We need to recognise we have a voice and we need to express that voice. Alongside that we must have a clear industry vision of what our industry needs to be.”

Vaux said it was up to the industry to deliver high-quality products and services and to recognise that the industry is changing. “The delivery of the boating experience will change in the future with new versions of clubs, charters, and share boat ownership arrangements, and there are even autonomous boats on the horizon,” said Vaux. “It is not just ‘buy a boat and away you go’. We all know that the leisure boating industry globally boomed during the pandemic, as we found new customers who turned to boating as one of the few new activities, they could do without travelling overseas. This boom is now waning so the industry needs to find new markets and Asia is high on the list with its fabulous destinations and growing middle class incomes.”