Mumbai to host boat show

Mumbai will soon join the major cities like London, Dubai, Cannes, Sydney as boat show has been organised in the city between February 22 and 25 where 20 odd boats will be showcased on water.

The show is jointly organised by the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC), Royal Bombay Yacht Club, Mumbai Port Trust, Indian Navy and Mumbai Boat Show Pvt Ltd (MBSPL).

Giving details of the show director of MBSPL Sujoy Chouhan said, "Boat show is quite a new concept in India as the only other location where boat show is taking place for the last few years is Kochi but Kochi unfortunately don't have potential market for luxury boats which Mumbai has."

The Dubai boat show which started with just 10 boats a decade back has now more than 300 boats on display and unlike automobile shows, which mostly showcase the new products and technologies of the particular company, in boat show actual buying and selling takes place as you can?t have show rooms for boats, he pointed out.

There are many people with buying power in Mumbai and other urban centres who can afford to have their own yachts and who desire to have life style products. And these boats are available right from Rs 3-4 lakh to Rs 450 crore, he said.

As part of the boat show an exhibition will take place at the Bandra-Kurla complex, in which 30 to 40 foreign manufactures are likely to participate including well-known brands like Sunseeker, Princess, Benetau, Cobalt, Sumerset, Dodman, Lagoon, Laser etc. and besides this 15 Indian manufactures will also participate, he added.

He further said, "boat shows are going to open up opportunities of employment in completely new sector of employment for thousands of Indians as the new owners of boats will like to have sailors to run their boats, experienced mechanics to maintain their boats".

Speaking about government of Maharashtra?s support to the show, tourism secretary Bhushan Gagrani said, "world-wide it is being the experience that, boat-show brings the tourist traffic to that city. And we want to promote Mumbai and Maharashtra as tourist destination".