With 55,000 visitors this year, the Cannes Boat Show boasts impressive visitor regularity - the figure is virtually the same every year - demonstrating, if proof were needed, the interest and appeal of boating and yachting.

At the end of the 6-day show, the gates of the Cannes Yachting Festival closed at 6pm on Sunday 15 September, to the deafening sound of foghorns and horns blaring from the yachts, powerboats and sailboats on display, a well-established Cannes tradition, as the technical teams dismantling the stands and packing up the boats filled the aisles of the Vieux Port and Port Canto.

The 2024 edition of the Yachting Festival, with 700 boats on display, from 5 to 45 metres in length, including 120 new models, and 55,000 visitors of 130 nationalities, was in line with previous editions in terms of visitor numbers.

It also saw the inauguration of a new configuration, with powerboats from 8 to 12 metres in length in Port Canto rather than in the Old Port, and outboard motorists in a dedicated Power Boat Marina - a good idea, but one that many visitors had not anticipated. In the end, 360 boats (yachts and powerboats over 12m) were on display in the Old Port and 340 (small powerboats and sailboats) in Port Canto.

Sylvie Ernoult, show director, comments on the show's results to ActuNautique Yachting Art: "The 47th edition of the Cannes Yachting Festival has just come to a close, and we're extremely proud of it. This year's offering, both on land and afloat, lived up to its promise. Our 640 exhibitors appreciated the facilities on offer, and the quality of the visitors lived up to expectations. That's the most important thing for us. Numerous eco-responsible innovations were also showcased in all areas of the show, and the ‘Innovation Route’ was particularly well attended by our visitors, demonstrating the sector's capacity for innovation. The new afloat area at Port Canto, the ‘Power Boat Marina’, was a real success, enabling numerous visitors to discover the quality of the exhibits on display on these boats, some of which they tried out at sea. The ‘power’ atmosphere appealed to exhibitors and visitors alike. After all the hard work we put in to achieve this, we're delighted with the results.

Decoding - In a context that is not easy for the yachting industry, the commercial returns from the autumn shows are being closely scrutinised by all the builders, who, at the end of October, will have a real trend for the coming months in terms of orders taken, and therefore the evolution of network stocks (which seem to be emptying properly) and, consequently, the production schedules of the factories for the coming months. The range of products on offer from manufacturers has rarely been so attractive, although this has been offset by the sharp price rises of recent years and the general economic climate, even if specific offers have never been so tempting for buyers. Against this backdrop, the reactions of shipyards are varied. While the yachting sector seems to be holding up rather well (200 million orders for Sanlorenzo 3 days after the start of the Yachting Festival and good sales at Sunreef for both its traditional and Ultima ranges), the marine market is more difficult (under 15m in length). Between those who are going into winter mode with few new products and few boat shows in the coming months, those who are maintaining their launches but reducing the size of their fleet, those who are lowering their prices as a result of the disinflation of recent months to bring them into line with other sectors of the economy, and those who are developing simplified models to offer certain models at knock-down prices and make it easier to take orders, there are a wide variety of strategies for shipyards to adapt. The crises of 2008 and 2011 demonstrated that innovation can be a powerful lever for taking market share in difficult times, an approach theorised by the counter-cyclical investment strategy. This is often a brilliant approach... if you have the resources. One thing is certain: the coming weeks will be closely watched by all the major construction companies.