SEA
TEACH. Silja Teege,
the owner
and director of this experienced company tells us about the
difficulties the charter companies are going through in these
moments. She also makes a global review of the trajectory of this
company in Cala d'Or.
Could
you talk me about the trajectory of the company?
We
started being Sea Teach in the year 2000, the moment when we realized
that in Cala d'Or there was not any charter company. The taste from
yacht comes from my husband who has been with boats all his life and
he was qualified before coming to Mallorca.
How
have you fared the tourist season that has ended?
It
has not been as good as it used to be. Less boats are sold and we
notice it in the school because as there are less people that buy
boats, less people want to learn boating. And related to the charter
side we can tell that our British market has decreased. The German
market has been very good and the Swiss market has been fantastic.
How
does your company approach the next years?
We
have a saying at the moment that is “more work, less money.” We
have to work hard and be innovative. We are diversifying, we are
running some European projects as well. This keeps us busy in the
winter and it gives us a bit more money, obviously. In this charter
company (and school) you have to work hard and try to get the
customers in.
What
services and products do you offer?
Our
main business is charter and sea
school. This
school is mainly for British tourists. We are associated to the UK
system (RYA). And our second part of the business is charter. We do
daily and weekly charter, skipper day charter. For boats we only do
motorboats, we don't do any sailing. Apart from that we do a bit of
chandlery, mainly into safety equipment but leaving aside the most
common ones. We also deal with the paper work for charter licenses,
registration and so on.
What
are the main problems of the yacht sector in the Balearics?
The
problem of the matriculation tax is the main one. One reason why our
business is suffering is that we have not had new charter boats on
our fleet for a long time because people cannot pay the matriculation
tax and they are not interested in putting the boats for charter. So
we have less boats which we can charter and less customers who want
to chart over that, because our boats are getting old. The charter
business is suffering quite a lot from the matriculation tax.
Why
did you decide to join the AENB?
We
did join to the AENB two years ago through the initiative of Patricia
Bullock for the issue related to the matriculation tax. She has a
company called Network Group. In that time there were a lot of
companies having problems with the matriculation tax. She organized
all the English-speaking charter companies to form a special group
and come a member of the association so that we would have also a
body behind us.
What
do you value most about being a member of the AENB?
The political influence. If we need any help we can get it there. We
have been in contact with Marga over a few issues as well and she was
helping a lot. We, as charter company, always have problems dealing
with illegal charter boats and she was very supportive on that side
as well and face this problem.
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