Click&Boat, the UK’s leading boat hire platform, has acquired its main European competitor Nautal reinforcing its position as ‘the Airbnb of the seas’ and increasing its UK offering to more than 360 boats.
Click&Boat was formed in 2013 by two French Entrepreneurs; Edouard Gorioux and Jérémy Bismuth. Their idea was quite simple – countless boats around the world are sat idly in ports, incurring maintenance costs for their owners and their aim was to match owners who wanted to earn some extra income with sailing enthusiasts who wanted to rent a boat.
Known as the “Airbnb of the seas’, the company has rapidly expanded beyond the French borders and now boasts presences in major boating destinations such as Spain, Italy, Greece, and Croatia, and of course, the UK.
The Nautal acquisition means that Click&Boat will now be responsible for boat rental in popular UK destinations such as Cheshire, County Leitrim, Galway, Hampshire and Lancashire.
Despite the well-publicised global economic problems caused by the pandemic, the UK boat hire platform is continuing to expand at a rapid rate of knots. It now has 150 employees and connects a community of one million users around the world.
Although boat-hire is a subject we’ve not written about as much as we should have, it is obviously a rapidly expanding industry as Click&Boat’s growth has been nothing short of astonishing.
Over each of the past last five years, it has achieved a growth in excess of 100% and will be accelerating its international expansion plans, widening the gap over its competition.
Speaking about the Nautal acquisition, 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.”
Jack Bowerman, the company’s UK Press & Marketing Manager added; “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.
Holidaymakers 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 offerings and has upped the number of skippered charters as a direct result of an increase in post lockdown bookings requesting these type of rentals. June 2020 saw a rise in these bookings 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 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 even 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.
For further information about Click&Boat, please visit www.clickandboat.com/uk/.
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