Ask what is holding the superyacht business back and you get regulation, the labour market, sustainability. Simon Bryan, vice president of operations for Europe at IGY Marinas, names something else: "the widening gap between growing superyacht demand and the infrastructure, people, and operating standards required to support it." He told Marine Industry News on 10.09.2026 that the fleet is growing faster than the coast can keep up.
Bryan has run IGY's European operations since 2017, after Rodney Bay Marina in Saint Lucia and the company's New York region. IGY operates 24 marinas in 14 countries, among them the Vieux Port de Cannes, where the Cannes Yachting Festival takes place: 645 berths, 55 of them for yachts over 24 metres, and space for a 140-metre yacht.
A marina is now five businesses in one
Bryan's argument is that the job of a marina has changed and most of the industry has not noticed. Yachts have got bigger, more complex and far more service-intensive, and a berth is the least of what they need. The marina is expected to be a logistics centre, a hospitality venue, the customs and immigration desk, a secure perimeter and a technical support hub, all at once.
Owners, captains and guests want that chain to work invisibly. Delivering it, Bryan says, covers power supply, immigration procedures, transport logistics and environmental compliance. Reliability and quality ashore, he concludes, now count for more than the yacht itself.
Simon Bryan, vice president of operations Europe, IGY Marinas:“The risk is that yachts continue to become more sophisticated while many destinations remain underprepared to support them effectively.
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The numbers show why. By SuperYacht Times' count the world fleet over 30 metres has passed 6,000 yachts, with roughly 200 new deliveries a year, and more than 900 of those are over 50 metres. Berths for boats that size are scarce in the ports owners actually want, and in high season they are sold out. Andalusia has just awarded a 40-year concession for a 200-million-euro rebuild of La Bajadilla in Marbella, from 268 berths to around 750 and taking yachts up to 70 metres, because the larger yachts have nowhere to go.
The money arrived before the infrastructure did
Bryan also points at who now owns the marinas. Institutional investors, private-equity firms and real-estate capital have moved in. The competition they bring tightens expectations on utilisation, performance and customer satisfaction, and raises the price of entry at the same time.
In April 2025 Blackstone bought Safe Harbor for 5.65 billion dollars, and this July CVC sold D-Marin to InfraVia, a network of 28 marinas with more than a thousand superyacht berths. IGY itself belongs to MarineMax, which Safe Harbor agreed to acquire in August for 1.5 billion dollars including debt. So Bryan is describing the wave of institutional money from inside one of the assets it is buying.
The effect is margin pressure on every line at once: labour, utilities, insurance, maintenance, compliance, security, technology, environmental infrastructure. That is Bryan's own list. Supply chains are still less predictable than before the pandemic, compliance requirements keep expanding, utility costs have risen sharply. And new developments and investor-backed operators keep arriving, so an operator that does not spend on facilities, technology and service standards loses the customer.
Simon Bryan, vice president of operations Europe, IGY Marinas:“The challenge for marina operators is to maintain exceptional service standards while improving operational efficiency, maximising asset utilisation, and developing complementary revenue streams that support long-term profitability.
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Where the dockmasters go
Over the past five years, Bryan says, experienced staff have got harder to recruit in every kind of role: operational, technical, hospitality, security, operations managers, engineers, dockmasters. The shortage sits ashore as much as afloat.
The problem, as he sees it, is that the industry frames it wrongly. The hard part is retention: career development, training and visible routes for progression. A dockmaster who cannot see where the job leads in five years leaves for a hotel or a port authority that can show them.
Where sustainability actually stands
On sustainability the list Bryan gives is practical: shore power (plugging the yacht into the marina grid instead of running generators), responsible waste management, efficient logistics, local sourcing, locations that are environmentally responsible without spoiling the guest experience. Regulation, in his view, should stay on what is operationally practical and commercially viable: infrastructure for it, better waste and water systems, responsible procurement, energy efficiency.
The marina is also where the local community forms its opinion of superyachting, a point operators rarely make out loud. It shapes sustainability outcomes, local employment, safety and the whole perception of the location. Operators should work far more closely with local authorities to show what the yachts bring economically, Bryan argues. The alternative is on display in France, where an opposition bill this summer proposed barring yachts of 50 metres and over from the country's waters.
The bottleneck in superyachting has moved ashore. The yacht can be built; the question is whether the location can receive it.
The Mediterranean stays at the centre
Bryan expects North America to stay highly influential on its concentration of ownership, wealth creation and charter activity, and the Middle East to grow as investment in marinas, tourism and hospitality continues. The Mediterranean stays the centre of superyacht activity for the foreseeable future: Spain, France and Italy hold it on the sheer density of marinas, shipyards, refit facilities, service providers and charter operations.
The shift he does predict is in how owners choose where to go. Captains and owners will increasingly favour operators that hold the same standard in every cruising region, over a collection of individual ports. That argument suits a network like IGY's, and it is also where the industry is heading: the location is becoming a product, and the price will be set by whoever has a quality product across the map and in the most regions.
