Back in the days ‘before social media’, research showed that the winter months were the most popular for getting engaged, particularly Christmas Day and New Year’s Day*. However, boat rental website Click&Boat has looked at its booking data over the last three years** and found that a significant number of summer bookings have been for engagements, driven by the need for the perfect setting for a wedding proposal, a trend in turn driven by social media sharing that is turning tradition on its head.
Globally, engagement boat bookings have increased year-on-year for the company and are now 100+ during the summer months. These proposal bookings have more than doubled between 2016 and 2018, with the UK and Europe really leading this trend**.
In particular, those who’ve grown up with social media (the millennial generation) have shared with the site dubbed the ‘Airbnb of the seas’ that they were looking to hire a yacht as they wanted to have the most awe-inspiring setting for their engagement. To put it simply, they would rather propose somewhere that looks great in photos than on a cold, grey winter day.
Not only are digital natives changing the month of their engagements, they are creating new marriage proposal holiday hotspots too. Looking at booking patterns for engagements in the previous three years, Click&Boat predicts these will be the top five summer destinations for engagements for Brits heading abroad this year.
Engagements 2.0 – Click&Boat’s 2018 Top 5 Summer Proposal Destinations
- Greek Islands – particularly Santorini and Rhodes
- Croatia – Vis and Korcula make for pretty spectacular proposal spots
- Italy – Venice, Rome and Sardinia lead the trend here
- France – Paris, Nice and St Tropez
- Spain – Ibiza is the engagement love island of the Balearics
If that special person does say ‘I do’, then of course there is an added consideration – how to make the stag/hen party, wedding or honeymoon destination just as special. Thankfully Click&Boat has 22,000 boats in 35 countries so can help with that. Boats can be hired from as little as £49 a day on the site and can be booked online at any time, something those using the service have shared is a real benefit.
Case study – Lara Martin Gilarranz
Lara Martin Gilarranz is part of the summer engagement trend, posting images of the big occasion on her Instagram feed. Lara also picked Click&Boat for her joint bachelor party with her fiancé.
The happy couple chose a sail boat trip in Costa Brava for this special day in May 2018, after her fiancé proposed when they were in Venice in August last year. “We wanted to do something different and special. Being from Madrid, it is not so easy to get on a boat. So for our bachelor party we saw the perfect opportunity to do something different.” Lara is a passionate sailing enthusiast: “I love the feeling of sailing: the sea, the wind in your face, the speed and sense of freedom it offers.”
Click & Boat was the go-to platform for that sort of thing: “When we came up with the idea we were looking on the internet to hire a boat for that day and, honestly, we fell in love with Click & Boat. Their website is informative, affordable, easy to use and provides a wide range of offers.
For further information about Click&Boat, please visit https://www.clickandboat.com/uk/
ENDS
For case studies or media opportunities, please contact Fiona and the team at GEC PR: Click&[email protected]
Sources:
* Engagements of the past:
https://www.facebook.com/business/news/engaged-people-on-facebook
https://www.weddingwire.com/wedding-ideas/top-10-most-popular-dates-to-get-engaged
**Summer engagements now:
Click&Boat looked at global and UK booking data from 2015-2018. In 2017-2018, 101 customers globally shared their summer boat booking was for an engagement. Of these, 57 were from Mainland Europe, 15 were from the UK.
Attachments:
Image 1: One of the boats available for hire in Ibiza, a top summer engagements hotspot on Click&Boat. Image Courtesy of Click&Boat.
Image 2: Click&Boat has identified a summer engagement trend, driven by social media sharing.
Image 3: One of the boats available for hire in Croatia’s Korcula, a top summer engagements hotspot on Click&Boat. Image Courtesy of Click&Boat.
About Click&Boat
Click&Boat is a boat rental site created in 2013 by two young French entrepreneurs: Edouard Gorioux and Jérémy Bismuth. This start-up was born from a simple observation: that there are millions of boats just sitting in the harbour for most of the year, and that is expensive for boat owners. Click&Boat allows owners to safely and intelligently cushion their boat expenses by renting it to other individuals.
In 2017, the “Airbnb of the seas” opened its platform up to professional boat rental companies and aims to become the world reference for boat rental.
