Boat & Motor Dealer, December 2001

International Trends in Development
by Ron Brazda

0ne of the tasks of ICOMIA’s Marinas Committee (IMC) is to spot trends in marina development worldwide. (ICOMIA is the International Council of Marine Industry Associations.) This is accomplished at committee meetings by comparing reports of related current events in the several countries represented on the committee, as well as by distillations of magazine and newspaper coverage of marina projects. With representatives of marina interest groups in 28 countries spread across Europe, the United States, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Oceania, and Japan, the committee has an exceptional vantage point.  

Taken from the IMC’s most recent report, these international trends in marina development are discerned:

DRY STACK GROWTH

As a result of a trend toward ever-larger, sea-going pleasure yachts, stimulated by exceptional economic growth in the 1990s, more marinas and boat yards are reconfiguring slip space to keep up with the growing demand for space for luxury yachts exceeding 70 feet in length. In the process, small boats under 40 feet are being relocated out of wet slips into dry stack storage as well as marinas and moorings farther outside metropolitan areas. Some owners are resorting to trailering them from home.

Commercial marina developers are running out of waterfront space. This may be due to competition with residential, retail, and office development, environmental restrictions, and resistance by organized private homeowners who fear a new or expanded marina will cause traffic and pollution problems disturbing their peace and quiet and undermining their property value. Community and coastal multiple-use master planning is sorely needed. Continue »