Boating Industry Canada - December 2007

THE FRACTURED
Crystal Ball

It’s that time again – the fall, when we all sit down to plan the coming year.

The problem is this fractured crystal ball. The pictures may be clear enough, but there are dozens of them!

Will you have more trouble finding good staff? Bet you will. Can the Canadian economy keep going? All the reports right now say yes. Will interest rates stay low? Looks like they will but there is some talk of inflation in the US economy. By the time you are reading this, the Fed was expected to cut rates to keep the USA from going into recession.

Could things south of the border get worse? Yes. Especially if the real estate market drops further and there are more US mortgage foreclosures. The American boat market is certainly soft now. The US greenback is also way down compared to other international currencies.

In all this uncertainty, boat builders and marine professionals from around the world turned out in record numbers to attend IBEX 2007 last October.

The verified attendance numbers indicate a slight increase, 4,570 attendees from 67 countries in 2007 compared to 4,509 in 2006, according to organizers. Including individuals and staff from the 900 exhibiting companies, the total verified attendance was 8,709.

Boating Industry Canada was at IBEX and we noticed a far greater number of people speaking languages other than English. Offshore manufacturers of marine products seemed to be having a good show as American builders filed past looking for ways to cut part costs.

All sorts of exhibitors expressed to us that business was good. A few admitted that new, foreign buyers were at the show buying as though the US market was a door-crasher special.

As just one example, Marine Concepts’ exhibition at the IBEX Show in October resulted in a 97 percent increase in sales over the 2006 show, the company reported in a press release.

Also, the NMMA announced that they had organized a sold-out USA Pavilion for the 2007 Marine Equipment Trade Show (METS). The USA Pavilion at METS featured 84 companies.

Where the crystal ball for 2008 may once have shown a weak US market and Canadian builders being cut out of any action there as a result of the record high Canadian dollar, the other side of the ball shows that there is clearly still a strong global

market for boats and marine equipment.

The METS Show has recently wrapped up for another year, and show organizers have already sent out a release saying that, “METS 2007 closed its doors on a high note. A total of 1,137 exhibitors from 39 countries and a visitor total of 19,764 compared to the total of 16,805 in 2006.”

So, here is the Insight we offer; don’t get too close to the fractured and baffling crystal ball. The big picture is of a generally booming world economy with a huge, international generation of wealthy adults, many of whom still want a boat or a yacht.