Hello! The end of the year is the time to take stock, and I, as editor-in-chief of itBoat, would like to do the same for our project, especially since it has been an unusually instructive year.
In March, the world was shut down because of the pandemic. We lost the ability to travel and grounded ourselves at home in self-isolation. «Exactly at that time author of column about yacht logistics Artyom Rozhkov delivered brand-new 15-meter Bavaria to Russia from Germany». That was an amazing experience - Artem described it in detail in his article. By the way, if you also want to become an itBoat expert, write to our editorial office at [email protected].
In the spring of 2020 the yacht market froze. We have seen it from the statistics of requests for information on yachts and boats in our catalogue. The itBoat editorial staff has continued to work remotely. In order to support both buyers and sellers of yachts we have launched an anti-crisis section in the Market.
By summer the numbers went down around the world, and the market has revived pent-up demand.
Russian shipyards, which were less dependent on imported components, were able to benefit from the situation.
Another point of growth was domestic Russian chartering. In June our project Charterly organised a yacht trip from Yaroslavl to St Petersburg for designer Artemy Lebedev. The idea was to show those who are used to holidaying abroad what opportunities we have at home. ItBoat supported this idea with a series of articles.
Globally, the American market has been the driving force behind the entire yachting industry.
In summer and fall in the U.S. there was an unprecedented rush for yachts, both new and used. Even today some shipyards' websites are advertising: we are experiencing an unprecedented level of demand.
Moreover the only large yacht exhibition that took place in 2020 was FLIBS in Florida. That happened in late autumn when Europe was hit by the second wave: exhibitions in Cannes and Monaco were cancelled, the exhibition in Dusseldorf was moved to April.
The show in Moscow in March was unexpectedly the last show that we, the editorial team of itBoat, visited in 2020. It was at that show, together with our experienced videographers, we shot our first videos for our YouTube channel.
We continued to develop our video direction in spite of and even thanks to the pandemic.
It became clear that in the new post-colonial world, the Internet and services allowing to choose and buy yachts remotely would play a fundamentally new role.
We have used the time and resources freed up by the cancellation of trade shows to develop our yacht search and selection service. The results of this work you will see in the new year. But right now you can enjoy the updated site navigation and our new search tool.
Year 2020 is not an easy year. We at the itBoat team wish you in 2021 to finally breathe out and start reaping the fruits of this difficult, but enlightening year. Happy New Year!
