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Strong Economy Propels Palm Beach Boat Show to Third-Largest in Florida

Posted on: Monday, 20 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By Lori Becker, The Palm Beach Post, Fla.

Mar. 20--Ask Andrew Cilla where South Florida's boating industry is headed, and he'll tell you to look north.

"There is more growth in Palm Beach than there has been in Fort Lauderdale," said Cilla, a yacht broker in South Florida since the 1970s and owner of Fort Lauderdale-based Luke Brown Yachts.

"Many brokers that have been in Fort Lauderdale have migrated north, mainly to Palm Beach (County) and Stuart. Our roots are spreading." Just five years ago, if Cilla had a Palm Beach County client looking to sell a yacht, he'd tell them to bring the vessel to Broward County to find a buyer. Not anymore.

Now Cilla's firm has its own broker in Palm Beach County.

And when the 2006 Palm Beach Boat Show opens this weekend, Cilla will be there.

"It's a good-selling show," he said. "It's one of the only regional shows I go to."

The 21-year-old Palm Beach show has grown to be the third-largest boat show in the state, behind Fort Lauderdale and Miami, and one of the top 10 in the nation.

The four-day show opens Thursday in downtown West Palm Beach, featuring boats of all sizes, from inflatables to megayachts, and thousands of marine accessories.

This year's show features 536 exhibitors and is expected to draw more than 50,000 people, said promoter Dane Graziano, vice president of Fort Lauderdale-based Show Management, which produces the show for the Marine Industries Association of Palm Beach County.

"There's no other regional show like it," he said. "It just keeps growing.... A lot of people that used to come down to the Miami show aren't coming anymore because they can get everything here, from luxury yachts to the smallest boats. The variety is here."

The hundreds of exhibitors -- from boat dealers to marinas, electronics vendors to tackle makers -- illustrate the reach of the county's marine industry.

"It's a good cross-section to show how broad the industry is," said Charlie Isiminger, president of the marine association. "It draws new people to boating and spurs a lot of excitement in our industry."

The boat show is just one glitzy slice of Palm Beach County's marine industry, which supports thousands of jobs and pumps out millions of dollars. It's an industry that's been quietly gaining steam over the past decade to become the second-largest in the state, behind only Broward.

Palm Beach County's marine sales have tripled, boat registrations are climbing, and the in-demand slip is becoming more elusive. That growth, in part, is a result of the world's boating capital overflowing.

Fort Lauderdale, home of the megayacht, is the hub of South Florida's lucrative marine industry.

But as the industry grows, the boats keep getting bigger and waterfront property is less available, more and more marine businesses are opening offices in Palm Beach County, said Frank Herhold, executive director of the Marine Industries Association of South Florida in Fort Lauderdale.

"That's where the slips are," he said. "Brokerage companies that believe in covering all bases have or will be establishing Palm Beach locations."

Nationally, boat sales have been flat for the past decade. But a recent economic study of South Florida's marine industry showed triple-digit growth in the region.

In Palm Beach County, marine-related sales -- which includes boats, equipment and services such as dockage and repairs -- are up nearly 300 percent over the past decade, reaching $575 million last year, according to the study by Gloucester Point, Va.-based Thomas J. Murray & Associates Inc., a marine business specialist.

Similarly, Broward County saw a 153 percent growth to reach $1.7 billion in sales, and Miami-Dade County's marine sales rose 80 percent to $437 million.

Industry leaders point to a myriad of factors driving the growth, including the booming population, strong economy, a surge of retiring Baby Boomers and the growing market for larger, more expensive boats.

Still, marine leaders say their industry is being held back by dwindling water access, which is being pressured by development along the state's waterways.

"The ability to expand and put money into our facilities and develop new markets is a luxury that in many cases is not available," Herhold said. "We have record sales, yet one can only wonder what it would be without the water-access constraint."

The Palm Beach Boat Show has grown considerably since its beginnings in 1984 at the former jai-alai fronton on 45th Street. It took off in 1995 when it moved to West Palm Beach's downtown waterfront, and the marine industries association hired Show Management to produce the event.

Organizers said the show continues to grow in popularity with exhibitors and consumers, but would not release exact attendance figures. Ticket sales have fluctuated in recent years because of wet weather and downtown road construction, Graziano said.

This year, more of the city's downtown streets have reopened from construction, and there will be more parking with the addition of the CityPlace garage and, for the weekend only, the Palm Beach County Courthouse.

The large in-water display is the show's hallmark, but organizers have made more room on land this year for additional exhibitors and about 100 small boats on trailers.

Showgoers like to swoon over the multimillion-dollar yachts, but there's been a growing demand to include more affordable vessels, organizers said.

"More people are coming to the show to buy," Graziano said.

The boat show brings in millions of dollars in sales for area dealers, often generating a large portion of their yearly income. And that doesn't even count the leads that start at the show and turn into sales a few months later.

"We don't look at it as a small boat show. It's pretty significant. It's a big part of our budget to be in Palm Beach," said George Jousma, president of Fort Lauderdale-based Allied Richard Bertram Marine Group, which plans to display close to 30 boats at this weekend's show.

Boat shows lead to half of Allied's sales each year, he said. But most of that comes from the larger shows in Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

"Palm Beach has never brought us the sales that we would have liked," Jousma said.

But Don Gilman said the West Palm Beach venue is his best.

His North Palm Beach-based Gilman Yachts draws many of its local customers from the show.

"We see a lot more people that we know," he said. "There's tons of boaters here."

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Source: The Palm Beach Post

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