MYBA Opens Upcoming Caribbean Charter Show to Sales Brokers

The professional organization MYBA announced today that it is opening next month’s charter show in Sint Maarten to sales brokers and will welcome not just charter yachts on the docks, but also “yachts which are explicitly for sale.”

MYBA’s announcement follows two years of tumult that began when the organization took control of the Sint Maarten show in 2007. The show was immediately pitted against the long-running Antigua charter show, with dates that were virtually concurrent and that forced charter brokers to shuffle back and forth across the islands at a frantic pace (and at double travel expenses).

MYBA’s president, Neil Cheston, has said the decision to enter the Sint Maarten market was based on what seemed at the time to be a clear mandate from MYBA members, but that in fact turned out to be a misrepresentation of members’ wishes. In May of this year, Cheston said the upcoming Sint Maarten charter show, scheduled for December 4-7,  would be the last that the group is contractually obligated to support.

Indications were also given in May that the Sint Maarten show might become brokerage-oriented in the future, so that it would appeal primarily to sales brokers and not to charter brokers who already attend the Antigua event. Now, it seems, the process is being speeded up to convert the short-lived Sint Maarten charter show into a home for brokerage sales.

Today’s press release quotes Cheston, a sales broker with Camper & Nicholsons International, who cites overall market changes during the global recession as the force behind the shift.

“MYBA entered into partnership with the St. Maarten Marine Trades Association several years ago, with a view to creating a showcase for superyachts for charter in the Caribbean. In those days the charter business was booming, and the benefits, both to MYBA’s charter agents and their yachts, and to the SMMTA, set up to promote marine trade in those waters, were considerable,” Cheston said. “It [now] makes perfect sense to take advantage of the superb facilities at the St. Maarten Show to sell a few yachts as well as booking charters for the upcoming season.”

Lucille Frye, organizer of the Sint Maarten show, is also quoted as saying that the recession played a key role in the decision: “2009 has brought austerity and changes to the superyacht industry, and MYBA, always ahead of the curve when considering the industry as a whole, has taken the outstanding initiative to invite yachts for sale to a new category within the St. Maarten Show.”