The Tribune

By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Charter Yacht Show is this week returning for its second-year from January 25 to 28.

Peter Maury, former Association of Bahamas Marinas (ABM) president, said this week's event will feature 60 percent more boats than the inaugural show and focus on encouraging yachters to visit all of The Bahamas' islands.

Speaking to Tribune Business, Mr Maury said a number of yacht management companies and brokers have indicated they will be attending.

He said: “We are actually doing quite well. We have more boats than we did last year by about 60 percent. We've reached out to a number of brokerages, yacht management companies, yachts and are encouraging them to come in to show them that, as a country, we are looking forward to them visiting our Family Islands.

“That's our biggest selling point right now. We're trying to get the boats to come over and visit all of our island groups.” Mr Maury added that over 40 Bahamians companies will participate in the event and guests will be housed at the British Colonial and Margaritaville, the partner resorts.

He said: “We have probably 40-plus Bahamian companies involved from sponsor levels to participants. We have over 150 brokers that are coming, which is obviously room nights with the hotels. We partnered up with Margaritaville and British Colonial for that.

“We're excited. We have a good venue and some cool events planned for them, and we're relatively close to the North American market so we have quite a few brokers coming over.”