Nautical tourism in Europe and the Mediterranean Area

The nautical sector has been fast growing in Europe, especially in the Mediterranean area: 70% of European yachtsmen are in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
More than 48 million of European yachtsmen, alongside non-EU nautical tourists, enjoy the European coasts and waters. Recreational vessels in European waters are more than 6 million, across 4.500 marinas and 1.75 million moorings, according to the “CNA Research on Dynamics and Market Perspectives of the Nautical Industry of Yachting”.
Nonetheless, the mooring market has been suffering from stagnation. During last year there have been some signs of recovery – the amount of moorings growing by about 7.7%. Transits have also increased by 3.3%, compared to 2014.
Tourist port market is accelerating: new ports are being constructed all around the Mediterranean Sea. The transits are particularly concentrated in the Tyrrhenian area (70%), while the remaining 30% is distributed among all the other nautical regions.
The good weather conditions of the summer season, the recovery of the used boat market and the economic maneuvers led by the governments to incentivize the market are all responsible of such growth.
However, as far as Italy is concerned, nautical market is still not so brilliant compared to other countries, despite all these positive data. One of its worst disadvantages is the clientele polarization, and a penalizing bureaucracy. The nautical sector is still tied to traditional systems. Worldwide, a boat entering in a foreign port is bound to a long list of restrictions and duties: from a report to local authorities, to the registration of all the documents needed for the permanence in local waters, up to the inspection on board. These are the fulfilments which take lots of time, energy and printed material that, with the transition to digital devices, could be easily avoided.
For this very reason, the Mediterranean area is launching an important initiative, of MarinaNow along with Navigodigitale, which promote a challenging project of a digital platform aimed at providing the Mediterranean ports with a perfect computerization system of the document exchanges needed by yachts during the entering and exiting phases.
The advantages include saving up to 80% of time, disposal of almost 2000 sheets of paper in each office, better traceability and real-time questions check, the possibility of accessing an always orderly paperwork archive, and the possibility of making online payments directly.