Francesca Webster sits down with Dean Smith, Chief Commercial Officer of D-Marin, to discuss their latest marketing campaign as well as new acquisitions, competition in the Mediterranean and sustainable development in the marina sector.
D-Marin has recently launched its new “Feels like yachting should feel” campaign. How do you envisage this campaign changing things for D-Marin?
Well, it’s less about changing things and more about bringing our current customer experience to life by showing our actual marinas and highlighting where we prioritise our efforts. Let's face it, when you buy a boat, your dream is to have a great time. You've got this wonderful expectation that it's going to be all adventure and sunshine and suntans, that it's going to be amazing, but often the reality is that it can be a bit challenging. We see our responsibility as being the people that are going to anticipate these challenges that every customer will face - and try to iron them out for you. It's our intention to help you, so that your yachting feels like you imagined it would in the beginning, like the feeling you had when you first bought your boat. “Feels like yachting should feel” is our nod towards the fact that yachting is great fun. You shouldn’t put up with hassle or put up with your service being a little bit average.
As we grow, we need to appeal to many more customers. We need to show how we are different. Most marinas are advertising that they have berths, they have security, they have a boat hoist, they have nice people on the front desk. Sure, these are all very functional claims. With D-Marin properties you can and would absolutely expect all that stuff to be good. But on top of it is a mindset or philosophy, one where we recognise you want to have a good time and we're going to put ourselves out there to try and deliver on that.
What you're talking about is very client focused, it's very focused on the owner. Are there benefits from the captain and crew’s perspective?
We know that our relationship with a captain is a business-to-business relationship. Captains have got some very functional things they need to do. They have to manage this massive asset for a demanding owner and within a strict budget. They want to make sure that there's transparency, reliability and many other things that will make their lives easier, they want to know they are dealing with a team that understands. At the same time, they need to think about the owner and their experience when they are in the marina.
The two shouldn't clash, they should complement each other. We've made sure that we train our staff to deal with different customer groups in slightly different ways. Even if you are representing the owner or you are the owner, you are both our customer.
With massive international investment becoming more common in the marina industry, we're seeing major companies buying one another up. What other things are you looking at as a company to make sure that you're staying on top of your game?
I think growth is fantastic, but if you grow but don’t add value to the new property then all you are doing is adding properties. It might be that all the individual properties in your portfolio are amazing and that customers appreciate the one they are in, but why should they care about this group that owns all of them if there is no value added? Whether it's marinas, jets, whether it's car services, whatever it is, there should be something that anchors them all together, a level of service that you as a customer have really enjoyed. In D-Marin we'd like to make sure we can replicate your enjoyable service authentically in each marina, every time.
One anecdotal story is that we once had a captain whose owner had to move the boat to a different location. He had our safety sensors on board the boat, and he went sailing off to his new marina. Whilst they were cruising past one of our other marinas, the bilge sensor alarm on our system alerted. Due to the fact that he wasn’t a current customer the team looked to see if they could identify the boat and they spotted him just outside the marina. This prompted a call to the captain to ask if everything was okay as we just received his bilge alarm. Surprised, the captain confirmed he had some water ingress and was trying to deal with it, so our team invited them in, sorted out a berth and offered to assist him in fixing it. This is the kind of authenticity in service I mean.
Expansion is part of the industry and it's definitely part of the marina sector. What does D-Marin look for when they're considering a new facility or a new property?
It has to be complimentary, it would be pointless building in or buying properties which are just around the corner from the prime spot. So we're looking for that “location, location, location”. Then we want solid infrastructure that can take care of smaller vessels to the biggest superyachts. We also want to upgrade the facilities and services so that they are aligned with all other marinas on our network. We don't want to reduce the character of a marina, but we do want to make sure it's a standard that you'd be happy visiting yourself.
At the moment we are very much thinking about the Mediterranean and have been for the last four years. But we could be very easily persuaded to find beautiful locations in other regions. What's great about the D-Marin platform is that it can scale, we've got nine countries now. So that's nine tax treatments, that's nine different cultural approaches, that's nine different administration processes. This is quite a powerful benefit as it allows us to consider almost any marina in any region. We have been in the UAE since 2019, but it could be interesting to go a little bit further afield.
We’ve recently seen Safe Harbor acquiring Monaco Marine, which is a big step for them entering Europe. Does that feel like an opportunity for you or is the competitive edge sharpening?
We openly welcome more sustainable investors in our sector. We are ambitious, yes, we are competitive, yes, but do we see this as a threat? No. If Safe Harbor has clients that they can bring to Monaco Marine, it's going to benefit everyone. That synergy is going to benefit employment and skillsets. It's a super specialised area and we need these companies to exist, we need them to flourish. And if Safe Harbor investment enables them to do that, then that’s great.
There is limited available coastline in Europe and the Mediterranean for the construction of new marinas. How do you view this challenge when you're looking at new facilities?
There are quite a lot of brownfield port sites that are underutilised because container ships are five times the size they were 25 years ago, meaning that a lot of the older, smaller facilities can't be used for their original commercial purpose and therefore need redevelopment. I think there's plenty of those that would allow for marinas, shipyards and new leisure marine facilities to be built without impacting on a place of natural beauty.
Whilst there's lots of them out there, you do need to be confident and able to convince customers and investors of the potential, which isn't all that easy. We believe that our approach of consolidating and having a scalable platform provides a lot of comfort to all. Nevertheless, you have to be quite skilled to say that you’re going to buy into an old shipyard and turn it into a beautiful leisure marina. It’s not a small job.
Marinas are sometimes near protected marine areas, making sustainable marina development that respects existing ecology quite a sensitive topic. How do you deal with this when developing new or existing facilities?
Restrictions around getting permits and licenses are vast and difficult; but not impossible. The permits are designed to allow new development and the responsible evolution of old properties, so there is a way. Do you have to work hard? Sure, of course you do. It's expensive, it's difficult, but we are demonstrating that it’s very achievable.
Technology will also help here. D-Marin are very focused on developing alternative energy solutions such as solar so that we can be more independent from the local grid and not become a burden. The same goes for water and waste. One important step is to measure everything and our inclusion in the ECO Vadis grading system allows us to do exactly that.
We recognise the interest in hydrogen and electric bunkering systems, but it’s still early days. Development will only come with demand, but demand will only come with development. We're at the stage now where we completely agree that our customers visiting by electric car need fast, reliable charging. Do we have the same demand on the water? Not yet but thankfully we do have ample electricity pillars that you can connect your boat into and it will recharge easily overnight.
