High demand soaks up supply
At this point, it may take some persistence and luck to find a yacht or canal barge to charter in 2023, let alone in 2022.
The issue for private canal barge charters in 2022 is that there are precious few weeks available during its seven-month season, said Jill Jergel of Frontiers International Travel, a barge broker that wholesales curated canal barge trips operated by independent barge owners plus the fleets of companies including European Waterways and Belmond, among others.
She painted a picture of just how grim 2021 turned out to be: Only three months of Frontiers’ barging season was operational in 2021 because the European countries where most barge cruises operate — France and the U.K. — were closed to Americans or imposed quarantine entry requirements until around mid-July. The bookings that didn’t operate over the other four months rolled over to 2022, for the same week that had originally been purchased.
That was, in fact, the second year of major rollovers.
“2020 was shaping up to be the best year ever in European canal barging” Jergel said. But once the pandemic was declared, “nothing operated. Because payments were nonrefundable, all monies simply slid to the same week in 2021.”
The backlog of canceled trips now rolling over to 2022 means there is significantly less inventory available for private charters of barges and, in some cases, even yachts.
“We have continuously been rebooking guests in an attempt to accommodate them over the past few years,” Pedersen said of The Moorings and Sunsail. “New bookings have remained surprisingly strong, and as a result we’re selling out, in certain time frames, months earlier than usual as we head into 2022. Demand is soaring, but combined with the rebookings from 2020 and 2021, availability over the next few months is becoming limited.”
Although, long term, it’s good news that demand is so high for both yachts and barge charters, advisors and suppliers also report that some clients are beginning to feel fatigue from supply continually falling short of demand. Sometimes, the interest in rebooking when more space is available — a moving target, recently -— gets tiresome.
The imbalance of supply and demand and impatient consumers has led some suppliers to become more flexible and accommodating with their booking policies. In addition to rebooking at later dates or issuing future travel credits, some have modified refund policies, either offering full refunds for trips that have been twice canceled or providing refunds right up to the last minute, should a client test positive for Covid immediately before departure.
“If you need to change the flight to your boat or your departure date or your destination, we have no change fees,” McLean said of Le Boat’s flexible booking policy.
“We’re not just offering future travel credits — we are giving them 100% refunds on their Le Boat trip if for any reason they can’t travel. We do have the confidence that they’ll appreciate this, and when it is time to rebook, they’ll come back to Le Boat.”