Malaysia Grow Boating Conference

I was honoured this week to be invited to a conference held in Penang about increasing leisure boat participation in Malaysia. There were about 40 delegates at the event from a range of marine companies, some long distance cruisers as well as property developers and government officials, including the Minister for Tourism.

They made a big announcement about Neil Chapman travelling all the way from the UK to give his opinion and, consequently, I stood up and talked at length about the UK experience in terms of boating. Because I work closely with the British Marine Federation, I was able to describe how the British Marine Federation has grown over its long history and obviously incorporates members now from a whole range of different marine organisations. With the backdrop of this, we discussed the urgent need to increase marine facilities including marinas and shore-side facilities. I was also asked questions on how the British Marine Federation might help the Malaysian Government and nautical institutions with education and help on how they should develop this marketplace. It was clearly a great opportunity to talk about Boatshed’s experience as a growing boat sales organisation, but equally, I think there are lots of opportunities for UK companies to work with their Malaysian counterparts to grow this very under-developed marine marketplace.

Clearly, from a boating perspective, Malaysia appears to offer amazing potential. As a marine destination with settled warm temperature and a very attractive coastline, it appears to be an ideal boating venue. The Minister for Tourism is now setting up a specific committee to deal with developing the leisure boat marketplace and has invited Boatshed to assist with this. Clearly, as I will not be spending all my time in Penang, I have asked Rolv Reissiger from Boatshed Asia to deputise on my behalf.

It demonstrates that, in the new emerging markets, the same challenges and opportunities present themselves and it is only with better communication with countries that have a more developed or even mature marine industry, that these markets will avoid some of the mistakes that have been made in leisure marine of the past. It is going to be great for Boatshed and it is an exciting opportunity to be involved in working alongside companies who really wish to take advantage of the tremendous leisure marine opportunities that Malaysia represents.