European port operators complained on Friday the continent's yachting industry was being held back by lack of berths and that red tape and taxes were slowing efforts to expand the places on offer.
Didier Allemand, general secretary of ports lobby Euromarina, told a conference in Paris that it estimated there were around four boats in Europe for every one of its 1.5 million berths, spread over 4,000 ports. "Ports at the moment are saturated," Allemand said.
Boat manufacturers such as Beneteau and Poncin Yachts complain regularly the market could grow faster if port capacity, particularly in France, was expanded.
France has around 442,000 yachts, but its 370 ports only have place for around 226,000. Port operators complain it can take up to six years to get permission for expansion.
Friday's conference was one of the first to look at the issue from a European perspective and fell against plans by the European Commission to draw up a new maritime strategy. Steven Desloovere, head of Belgium's ports association and director of Nieuwport, said lack of berths was the biggest problem cited by 62 percent of its members. "Fifteen thousand Belgian boats went to the Netherlands, mainly for tax reasons, and now they can't come back because we lack places," he said.
Gabriel De Sandoval, president of Spain's FEAPDT ports federation, said it too suffered from lack of capacity despite a four-fold increase in berth numbers since 1975 to an estimated 107,000 in 2005.
Spanish ports planned to increase capacity by around 47,000 places over the next 10 years, he said, but that would still be less than the number of boats in the country. He urged Spain to review a 2003 law that increased taxes on ports.
The ports appealed for the European Union to make available more funds to them under regional aid schemes.