Look at the vessels that have been built between now between then and now and what's going to be built by the time we get to 2032. This is the Ben Taylor podcast the home of marine industry insights enjoy. Hi everybody welcome to another episode of the Ben Taylor podcast. This is a bit of a wrap-up really this has been part of a series designed to profile the Australian yachting industry and so we've heard at this point from a lot of different yachting organizations based in Australia exporting from Australia and everything in between. So we're going to have a bit of a bird's eye view of the industry in Australia. So I'm here with David nice to see you David. Not bad not bad at all. So could you give us just that like an overview of what's happening in Australia in the yachting industry. Sure the Australian industry is quite mature for this part of the world. There's been a long history there of manufacturing. We've been manufacturing yachts here for a number of years a number of decades and we've also had a lot of shipyards doing refit maintenance work and the Australian ownership a lot of owners have owned vessels overseas and since COVID a lot of those vessels got brought home and they've stayed here. So our domestic fleet now is the largest in Asia Pacific. We've got 121 domestic vessels and our visitation from overseas is around that 50 to 60 mark per year. So at any one time there's probably up to 150 vessels here in Australia. So it's you know quite an established. Yes it's quite big and then why is this international visitation so important and is that increasing set to increase decreasing what's the situation? So international yachts because they're bigger they usually have a bigger budget they move around we form a refit maintenance backbone for them to venture into the Pacific and go to some of the remote locations in the Pacific and still they've got the support from either Australia or New Zealand to get that work done. So the visitation to Australia has been down a little bit in the last couple of years mainly because of the access through the Red Sea. We get close to 40 percent of our visitation from that part which makes sense seeing the passage from the Red and yeah they come down from the Med usually down through the Maldives yeah across to Thailand and then down. So we've been reliant purely on access through the Panama Canal. So visitation's been down slightly but the vessels that have made it here have stayed for longer so I think the industry hasn't really noticed that that drop it's just the vessel number yeah. Thanks mate. That's all right so it's just the vessel number that's that's dropped. Yeah yeah so yeah so it's the vessel number that's dropped most of the industry probably haven't noticed that because the vessels that have been here have been staying longer. So it offsets the impact. It does you know the longer a vessel stays the more that it spends here so you know there's contractors getting work, the marinas are full, the shipyards are full but the the vessel numbers have been down. Right and importantly this uh this longevity of of the industry has meant that there's now very very substantial infrastructure to actually support the vessel sufficiently. You've got refit capabilities, there's marinas, there's nice places to not only experience but also to support the reality of a yacht. Yes but we always need more. Yeah well when there's demand like there is like there is I mean it's an infrastructure limiting factor. It is yeah and you know we've got a long lead time there's a lot of approvals that are needed to build infrastructure here so we're always you know encouraging more investment, encouraging government to release more projects and approve projects quicker so that we can deal with more vessels. Yeah and the part of the project that we've collaborated on is all about the 2032 Brisbane Olympics. Why is that important? Let's say because it seems a long way away. I think the reality is that it's close that everybody kind of realizes when you're dealing with these really big projects that need to happen and at an opportunity of that size. So there's been a study done to say that if we do it right the 2032 Olympics is worth 1.8 billion dollars to the superyacht industry in Australia which is not to be sneezed at that's a big opportunity. So Brisbane is the river city which is host so there's plenty of opportunities to vessels to be very close to some of the venues tended directly to some of the venues. So we really need to get the word out to the market to say not only are we capable of hosting you but it's going to be an enjoyable location to be during that two-week period in 2032 and to make the decision to send your vessel here it's going to be a decision that you're going to make probably 12 to 18 months before the event so you know we're getting closer and closer to that decision point for vessels to come. Yeah and what will be the impact of the Olympic Games the Brisbane Olympic Games in 2032 for the yachting industry over those following years? Well the big opportunity is for the entire region so you can't visit Australia without coming through a number of our regional neighbours on the way here there's plenty of stepping stones so it's an opportunity for the whole of the South Pacific. It will be the South Pacific's opportunity to host the Olympics so the vessels coming through will provide economic job opportunities in plenty of fairly poor Pacific regions but they can cope with the vessels because they're high yield low numbers that are coming through so the opportunity really is for all of the South Pacific for those yachts coming through. Many of those owners may not come to the Olympics if their vessel's not there so if they can have their vessel there, host parties, host business meetings on board then it might be the difference between them attending them or not. Yeah and so as Superyacht Australia and as AMAX how do you approach all this to make sure the yachting companies in Australia are in as good of a position as possible to make the most of these opportunities? Well I think domestically we've drunk the Kool-Aid, we understand that there is this opportunity and how to go about it. The challenge for us really is to get the word out internationally so that's where we need your help. We for a number of years now have been running Inbound for Mills as part of our conference so like you've attended, bringing you down sort of the week before the conference, show you Brisbane, show you some of the venues, show you what it's all about, show you some of the infrastructure that's already here, some of the brilliant shipyards that we've got so that we can get the word out. The beauty of our industry is it's quite a small industry so we don't need thousands of people to come here to convince, we just need some key people to start having the conversation internationally. Yeah and it was good as well because I mean around the whole industry around the world we're pretty obsessed with the Mediterranean and the Caribbean and kind of Florida and to come and see the reality of Brisbane and see it through kind of the eyes of well here's where the Olympic village is going to be, oh that that bridge is there now and so how are yachts going to navigate their river, how are they going to moor up, what needs to be done to actually make it a reality, that was really really interesting and then to meet so many people and effectively the industry down here throughout the conference and then go on to the show here really gave an insight that I think is pretty pretty uncommon. Not many people see how this quite nuanced region of the world works and operates and so what the really key important factors are to to make it a success. So before you came were you aware of how much infrastructure is already here? No, no the I was expecting it to be more spread out like it seems to be pretty focused in Perth and then between Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sydney and as the by the two hot spots with not all that much in between and then I didn't quite understand the the scale of the demand that are on boating as well as yachting that's already taking place and then the infrastructure struggles that have come with it like I was surprised it wasn't just like you know quiet shipyards thinking oh I wish there was more boats here like we've been down the road we've seen the boat works, Riviera and Gold Coast City Marina like they're at capacity, they're expanding, they're literally just going yeah how fast can we invest, how fast can we develop this because we can't pull boats out fast enough and it's already a big scale so that was a massive learning from my perspective. I think there was a missed opportunity that we had with the Tokyo Olympics. The Tokyo Olympics were you know sort of seven months before the America's Cup was to be hosted in Auckland and as a result there was two big world sporting activities that were going to happen in a relatively short distance from each other and Auckland had 134 super yachts booked now our annual visitation is around that 60 mark right and there was 134 booked and that was you know five or six years ago. Look at the vessels that have been built between now between then and now and what's going to be built by the time we get to 2032 you know saying that there's going to be 200 yachts coming to the Olympics is not a stretch we might have even underdone it so we need to get prepared for it. Yeah absolutely David thank you so much for having me I've learned a huge amount I'm pretty sure I'll be back as well so thank you for having me thank you for teaching me and the people watching all about the industry and everything you're up to. Nice good to have you here. Thank you very much. Welcome back anytime mate. Awesome thank you very much. Everybody make sure you're following here to see plenty of insights just like this if you haven't seen part of this series it's been quite extensive go back watch them contact the companies that we've been profiling they're all very very welcoming nice people and all being well we'll see you again very soon bye for now. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Ben Taylor podcast the home of marine industry insights we'll see you again very soon bye for now.