Click&Boat, the UK’s leading boat hire platform, has acquired its main competitor Nautal, reinforcing its international leadership as ‘the airbnb of the seas’, and growing its UK offering, now with more than 360 boats being listed for rental in the UK via the acquisition.
Click&Boat will now be responsible for boat rental in popular UK destinations such as Cheshire, County Leitrim, Galway, Hampshire and Lancashire, and this month has grown its UK sales and marketing team by 20% to reflect the greater importance of the UK to Click&Boat’s future expansion.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, Click&Boat continues to expand, and the company now has 150 employees and connects a community of one million users around the world. It has achieved more than 100% growth each year over the last five years, and is set to accelerate its international expansion while widening the gap with its competition. Following recent acquisitions, the Click&Boat fleet has grown from 35,000 to 45,000 boats.
Speaking about the Nautal acquisition, Click&Boat’s Founder, Jeremy Bismuth explained; “Click&Boat and Nautal share many values and commonalities. With the acquisition of Nautal, Click&Boat opens a new chapter in its development, and allows the business to reach a critical size in order to promote optimal quality of service. We are shaping the yachting of tomorrow together, making it accessible to as many people as possible.”
Click&Boat’s UK Press & Marketing Manager, Jack Bowerman adds; “The Nautal acquisition is really exciting for our UK market, as it dramatically increases the number of boats in the UK that will benefit from the Click&Boat group’s ever-growing resources. Holiday makers in the UK booking boats through Nautal will now benefit from Click&Boat’s additional resource – from customer care, to the experience that comes with being the world leader in boat rentals.”
Click&Boat is continuing to expand its consumer offer, and has upped the number of skippered charters as a direct result of an increase in post lockdown bookings requesting manned rentals. June 2020 saw an increase in these booking by 60% compared to the same period last year. The average length of summer 2020 boat rental time is also up by 11%.
The acquisition of Nautal allows the Click&Boat group to become the benchmark nautical tourism company globally, with an additional 10,000 boats, notably in the UK, Netherlands, Spain, and Germany. At the same time, Nautal is becoming a strategic partner thanks to its attractiveness and enhanced offer in key markets for yachting. Thanks to the acquisition, Click&Boat intends to develop new products and services for renters and owners. The user experience will be ever more complete and adapted to the needs of the boaters. Owners will be able to rent their boats even more easily and benefit from maximum visibility as well as services such as advanced planning and fleet management tools.
ENDS
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Notes To Editors:
Image 1 Caption: Click&Boat Founders Edouard Gorioux (right) and Jérémy Bismuth (left) with professional offshore yacht racer and Click&Boat ambassador François Gabart (middle).
About Click&Boat
Click&Boat is a boat rental site for private individuals and professional created in 2013 by two French Entrepreneurs; Edouard Gorioux and Jérémy Bismuth. The idea is simple – millions of boats remain idle at ports around the world, incurring maintenance costs for their owners. The platform matches boat owners who want to earn extra income with sailing enthusiasts who can rent a boat at surprisingly low costs. The company, dubbed “airbnb of the seas’ by CNN, has quickly expanded beyond the French borders, establishing its presence in major boating destinations such as Spain, Italy, Greece, and Croatia, as well as the UK. Since the end of 2018, the world-famous sailor François Gabart has been both an official ambassador and shareholder of Click&Boat. Click&Boat currently has a community of over 400,000 boat users worldwide.