Book berths for boating holidays online
New company MarinaVIP aim to facilitate berth booking with an interesting website, set to be launched in the summer.
The MarinaVIP website will allow boaters to book berths in advance across Europe and according to the firm’s plans, eventually across the world.
The site uses Google Maps, with green ticks appearing at marinas that have free berths.
Up to a 20% deposit will be taken from your credit card upon booking, with the balance paid when you get to the marina.
As well as booking a berth, the website allows to you to calculate the cost of a night in a certain marina using the length and beam of your own boat. From that the website will work out a weekly, monthly and annual rate to keep a boat in a particular marina.
MarinaVIP are in talks with some of the major marina operators, who would pay commission to MarinaVIP every time they sell a berth.
The idea is that MarinaVIP can link with existing berth organising software at marinas, giving staff more time to deal with customers.
Registration will be free and the site will also incorporate a social networking aspect where people can create a profile, detail their boat and share stories as well as write marina reviews for the benefit of other uses.
Eventually MarinaVIP say they will be linked to Twitter and Facebook to raise their profile and bring boaters together.
Operations director Austin Awadzi says: “Our business comes from personal experience of not being able to get in to marinas or being able to check how busy they are. We want to help boaters find berths in the UK and Europe and hopefully worldwide eventually.
“We want to aid marinas as well by making them more efficient and giving them more time to deal with the customer as well as providing greater scrutiny of their facilities through customer review.”
The site is set to be launched in the summer but updates are available on the MarinaVIP website.
