5th Thailand Yacht Show achieves strong results

The fifth edition of the Thailand Yacht Show was held at Royal Phuket Marina from January 9-12 with a wide range of yachts, marine equipment and lifestyle products on display. Now firmly established as a consumer boat show in Thailand, the event is well-supported by key regional distributors including Asia Yachting and Simpson Marine.

Hong Kong-based Asia Yachting exhibited two new yachts from Monte Carlo Yachts (MCY) and Prestige, both Beneteau Group brands. The New MCY 70 made its Asia premiere alongside the new Prestige 420.

“As one of the most important nautical events in South East Asia, we were proud to bring the two Asia premieres to the Thailand Yacht Show,” said Asia Yachting CEO Olivier Besson. “It was a remarkable achievement for us and the visitors proved to be a really interesting and much-profiled target. Looking forward, our team is gearing up for opening a new office in Phuket which will enable us to focus on sales in South East Asia, where we expect the market to grow considerably over the next few years.”

The Simpson Marine presentation at the Thailand Yacht Show saw a strong catamaran line-up with Lagoon and Aquila models and the Asia premiere of the Fairline Squadron 50.

“We are delighted to announce the successful conclusion of the Thailand Yacht Show 2020, the first event of the Asia boating industry year where we were the largest exhibitor at the show,” Mike Simpson, founder and managing director of Simpson Marine, told IBI. “This year, we were privileged to present two Asia premieres – the Fairline Squadron 50 and Lagoon 46 Catamaran – at the show. The show also saw the largest catamaran, a Lagoon 630 motoryacht, being displayed and offered for sale on the brokerage market.

“With both mono and multihulls from 9m-27m on display at the show, the Simpson Marine stand was kept busy throughout the four-day event. Our strong fleet included a stock Lagoon 42, taking the tally of Lagoon catamarans at the show to three, plus an Aquila 44 and a Flyer 8.8. We concluded the show with two Lagoon sales contracted at the show with more under negotiation together with an Aquila Power cat order.”

Simpson continued: “We have recently been appointed as a distributor for Bluegame, a brand of Sanlorenzo, for Asia and we will be promoting this new brand together with our existing brands at the Singapore Yacht Show in March. Simpson Marine will have 12 or more yachts on display including many new premieres and new models from Sanlorenzo, Bluegame, Fairline, Beneteau, Lagoon, CNB and Aquila.”

Andy Treadwell, CEO of Singapore-based Verventia Pte Ltd, the owner and organiser of both the Singapore and the Thailand Yacht Shows, has brought forward the date of this year’s Singapore show. “The confirmation of the three weeks earlier timing for the Singapore Yacht Show follows an overwhelmingly positive response from exhibitors and visitors to a suggestion that we should avoid the clashes of the past few years with the Easter, Songkran (Thai water festival) and Asian school holidays. We should also benefit from the cooler and drier time of the year in Singapore in mid-March. This should increase our visitor numbers considerably.”