Ancona, 28 November 2023

The picture of the boating industry in the Marche Region in Ancona at the third Super Yacht 24 Forum, organised by the Marche Yachting and Cruising Association in cooperation with the Port System Authority of the Central Adriatic Sea.
With 200 companies, more than 3 thousand direct workers and more than 10 thousand indirect workers the fourth region in Italy for the ship and boat industry

With over 200 companies and 3,309 employees, the Marche Region is among the leading Regions in Italy for ship and boat building. The turnover of this industry exceeded 1 billion euro in 2022, driven mainly by exports that account for over 90% of sales, mostly outside the EU. The snapshot of the sector was presented on November the 28th at the event “The Marche Region: the Region of the luxury ships”, held at the “Ridotto delle Muse” theater in Ancona during the third Forum of Super Yacht 24, an on-line newspaper specialising in the nautical sector, organised by the Marche Yachting and Cruising Associ-ation in cooperation with the Port System Authority of the Central Adriatic Sea.

The research ‘The yachting & cruising cluster in the Marche Region’ by the working group of Professor Do-nato Iacobucci’s Università Politecnica delle Marche with the Marche Yachting and Cruising Association was presented. In terms of the number of directly employed people, Marche is the fourth Region in Italy, with 11.3% of the over 31 thousand employees nationwide. The work rate, however, rises considerably with the number of people employed in the sector’s allied indus-tries exceeding 10 thousand. The pleasure boating industry in the Marche covers the yacht and explorer segment for 17%, 67% concerns other products. Production specialisation is divided between large luxury yachts (20-40 metres), super yachts (40-80 metres), maintenance and refitting. The Univpm research shows that the industry’s value chain largely involves the economy of the Marche Region: 80% of produc-tion activities are outsourced to external partners, outsourcing is distributed to suppliers mainly located in Italy and in the Marche Region.
Four challenges awaiting the sector were at the centre of the debate, with a full hall at the Ridotto, coordi-nated by Nicola Capuzzo, Founder and Director of Super Yacht24. The first theme is innovation, which has seen, in the 2014-2020 European programming period, the cluster’s enterprises play a leading role in 30 re-search projects carried out through regional calls for tenders with a total investment of €19 million, of which €9 million in private resources. Another challenge concerns the focus on quality and sustainability, with the cluster always paying attention to these factors. Fundamental to the growth of yachting and cruis-ing are human resources and training as well as the need for new spaces for yachting in the Region.