The new breed of travel startups that wants you to borrow a boat this summer
Photo Credit: Boats moored to the marina in Tarifa, the southernmost tip of Spain. Flickr / Karan Jain
Skift Take
Boat sharing avoids many of the regulations that make the sharing economy especially difficult to disrupt in the housing and auto industries, leaving quality and safety as the predominant determinants of success.
There's a new breed of travel startups that wants to connect boat owners and occasional renters.
The sharing economy has spotted its latest marketplace and startups from around the world are working become the homepage of the peer-to-peer boating industry. It's an industry built on the basis of providing renters with cheaper rentals, better boats, and a more personalized experience and owners with a new source for customers or just some extra cash to offset ownership costs.
The marketplace is ripe for development. According to the National Marine Manufacturers Association, 37.8 percent of the U.S. adult population, or 88 million people, took part in recreational boating for at least one day over the last year. This was the largest number of people that had gone boating since the NMMA started collecting data in 1990.
The organization also launched Discover Boating, a campaign designed to grow participation and awareness of boating in an effort to increase new boat sales.
Boati
