It's five to twelve for local yacht charter - who is really at the helm

• 02.09.2025.
• News, Finances

Yacht charter in Croatia balances between the desire for quick profit and the need for safety at sea. The chase for every euro creates an image in which statistics look solid, but reality at sea shows otherwise. In his new article, Ivica Žuro explains where the compass is lost, whether yacht charter is on autopilot, and profit ahead of safety.

Introducing order has no alternative, no matter what anyone says. And if there is any branch in which this should continue to be done, it is local tourism from the most basic form to those that generate the highest revenues and out-of-pension spending, such as yacht charter.

But there is no effect if order is introduced without respecting oneself, meaning the local resident and entrepreneur.

 

Fast courses + quick accidents = content for other people’s likes

Namely, in addition to all the problems this sector faces, the race for euros increasingly leads to boats being rented to ever more inexperienced guests who have completed a course lasting 21 days, give or take.

That it can get worse than last year is not shown only by the figures of shorter average stays under sailing arrangements but also by daily reports of groundings and similar mishaps.

As for every nobody and their brother also being treated here as a recognized skipper, this has already been discussed at professional gatherings and business conferences within the sector.

Snimio si mene s krivog rakursa, ja sam navigator, skini mi se s... kursa (You've got me from the wrong angle. I'm the navigator. Get off my... course) - the famous and profound lyrics of a classic of the Cro dance scene of the 1990s best illustrate where we stand and what we are when it comes to respecting the dignity of the profession in nautical circles.

Qualified crew on board is by no means an optional extra replaceable by a combination of online courses with a bit of practice.

Not only lack of education but also lack of respect for the profession - which manifests itself precisely in recognizing the right to operate a vessel as if it were obtained on the demanding waters of Turkmenbashi on the Caspian Sea - leads to problems being filmed for social media rather than respecting valid and informal rules of navigation.

It is clear: agreeing to anything for the sake of profit brings nothing but anything.

It is five to twelve for suppressing egos and working together towards the survival of Croatian yacht charter to this extent.

Season 2025 - the numbers say it all

And how is the season going, looking at 31.07 of this year and comparing it with the last one after which heads were also spinning?

There were 25 more active legal entities registered for boat rental on the market compared to 969 in 2024.

Overall, the drop in the number of rentals is 1.9% of the total number of vessels and that is not worrying if there were no price cuts.

What should ring the alarm more is the decline in the number of rentals in the most massive segment of boats with a hull length of 10 to 12 meters, which make up 80% of the market from 38,600 realized rentals. There the number of bookings went down by 2.7%.

It is little consolation that the number of sail yacht rentals grew by 4.5% if this is happening in a segment that makes up 10.6% of the market. All the more so because - with due respect to everyone - many more local people live off yacht charter in the most sought-after category than off servicing sail yachts and the highest category.

Ok, enough warnings, whoever is serious in everything is not popular, it is nicer not to hear what is happening. And more painful when it hits.

Apart from the crisis in the EU and the costs of the general state which troubles local companies in general and prevents them from growing and developing?

It is not money that is the problem, but people

It is not financial resources, but a lack of professional and managerial staff.

Small legal entities achieve sufficient accumulation of funds and manage to finance quite a lot from regular operations.

It is also obvious: advance payment is less and less an option because the demand for working capital loans, which were largely used to obtain additional discounts through advance payments, is constantly decreasing.

If the saved amount in that way exceeded the interest and fees for working capital loans - it made sense to go into debt.

Since the culture of not paying on time has long mostly been a thing of the past, it is logical that sellers or clients concluded that it is the same to be paid in 15 or 30 days if they have reliable partners.

In other words, more will remain with them.

This is all the more important since 2022 and 2023 passed in the tone of very high external financing costs....

...and why would anyone give more profit for paying interest if they can do without it.

It is not unimportant that the loan approval process used to take time and sometimes additional collateral was requested, which is usually not the case with leasing, which is still a sought-after option.

That is the essence of the story of the latest survey on the financing conditions of small and medium-sized enterprises, which has been conducted for years by the central bank HNB.

 

What local entrepreneurs are asking for - and without which there is no moving forward

Short and clear, local small entrepreneurs agree that for attracting quality workforce and therefore the future of company operations the most important are:

• improvement of the business environment,
• tax reliefs and
• more flexible labor legislation.

There are two pieces of advice here that can be of considerable use:

1. If you cannot find qualified staff - as with leasing, rent them through a b2b contract, there are plenty of engineers and finance experts who work for themselves and have something to contribute.
2. People aged 45 to 55 are in the best period of their lives and one should not succumb to the pressure to take someone younger and more experienced because such a person - does not exist.

This is especially true for companies facing difficulties in financing business operations. The primary reason is most often organization and controlled management of funds.

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