Latest / Reframe First / Barbara Gabriel, CEO of FX Yachting | The Future of Luxury Yacht Travel & Wellness Trends
Transcript
- Oleksij Rak: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Reframe First. I'm Alexey, of the podcast. Let me welcome our today's Barbaro Gabriel, ⁓ founder and CEO at FX Yachting. Hi Barbaro, great having you here. Barbara Gabriel: Thank you for having me and hosting me. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for joining. So from what I learned, like FX Yachting is about luxury, fully-cruel, all-inclusive yachts and catamaran charters with like quite a large fleet of 60 plus ⁓ yachts. And so like you provide like fully managed experience on one hand for the travelers, but you also provide, you also serve yacht owners. Barbara Gabriel: See you. ⁓ Oleksij Rak: by managing the product. So it's some kind of marketplace, if you look at that. Could you tell us more about the business and what it is? Barbara Gabriel: Sure. we're a business based, basically we specialized, I came to a point that I specialized that I wanted to do crude catamaran charters. I think the catamaran is an upcoming boat that ⁓ is gaining a lot of traction. And you're saying now that there are power yachts, power catamarans and sailing catamarans. So we specialized in this and we started in 2008 with our first catamaran and now we're up to 62 crewed catamarans. And so what we offered is very bespoke travel ⁓ luxury yacht charters. And so every client has a different idea of what they want as a charter and we try to tailor make their vacation. from their menu to where they want to go, to their experiences, if they want to do something like a wellness on board or something else, we try to tailor make their holidays. So it's not like a package tour, it's very tailor made. Oleksij Rak: Okay, so it immediately opens up a lot of for discussion. So yeah, let's start with travelers probably. So ⁓ from what I've seen, like what we read, like you providing all like the full package of experiences. So it's YARC, it's a crew and visiting marines and restaurants, transfers, activities. Barbara Gabriel: Yeah. Oleksij Rak: provisioning, weather, itineraries, whatever. So how hard is it to combine this kind of package for each developer? Barbara Gabriel: Everything. Yeah. Well, we have a whole operations department that handles all of the bespoke things. So when a client books with us, we start with a preference sheet so we know exactly what they want from their holiday. So if they want to do history or if they want to do water sports or if they want to do shopping or partying, we sort of know what they want from the beginning from their preference sheet. We know what they eat and what they don't eat and then we try to design an itinerary around that. Of course, everything is weather dependent. So this is one of our problems is that, you know, if they want to do a party and they want to go to Mykonos, well, it's not always possible to go to Mykonos due to the weather conditions sometimes of the month of the year. Oleksij Rak: you Hmm. Yeah, I see. Makes sense. And how many bookings, like, if it's not like secret information, do you have like any? Barbara Gabriel: Thank you. No, no. So we do about 750 bookings per year. We also have boats based in the Caribbean. We have boats also based not only in Greece, in Palma. And we did base boats in Egypt, but ⁓ now it's another problem with the war that has broken out that people feel unsafe to travel to the Middle East. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, understandable. yeah, and probably you have some, is there a seasonality in the region? Probably there should be. Barbara Gabriel: Yes. Yes. So Greece is, I mean, our season starts, for example, from April until the end of October. ⁓ In Palma, the season is a bit longer because of the weather conditions. Caribbean is the winter destination. And well, Egypt was an all year destination, but that's on hold for a bit. Oleksij Rak: Okay, okay. And how do you deal with seasonality? Does it affect you hard? Because recently I had a conversation with a travel company from Norway and their season is summer season plus a bit of Christmas, you know, the rest of the time, it's just completely down time. How does it work? Barbara Gabriel: Yeah. Well, no, the boats in the winter, mean, for Greece and most of the Med, it's just too cold. The islands are, you know, the restaurants are closed. The activities on the different islands are basically not open. So it's not very interesting to clients to come and charter a boat, for example, in the Med during the winter. ⁓ Oleksij Rak: So yeah, so there's just tasers. Barbara Gabriel: Yeah, well, it either stays there or we take them across to the Caribbean or shift, like we do shift the boats. So we've got boats that do the summer season here, then we shift them to the Caribbean for the winter, shift them back for the summer. Oleksij Rak: ⁓ there is a good way to manage seasonality, like in your case. ⁓ Barbara Gabriel: Yes. yeah, it all depends on the owner because the costs keep going up every year to ship the boats to the Caribbean. ⁓ It also depends on fuel costs and things like that. So it needs to make sense or the owner would want to do a few weeks in the Caribbean that, you know, that will ship the boat down there. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, I think with regards to the owners, how much does it make sense to own a boat and to rent it through a platform? Barbara Gabriel: It all depends. So if they want it just for ⁓ professional use, usually they get an 8 to 9 % return on investment. If they are using the boat, then it's basically using their summer house. It's the same mentality. So, you know, if you have a summer house and you're renting it out, of course, then it's just like your income is less, but you're enjoying your boat. So usually for a boat to break even in its expenses, it usually needs about 10 weeks of charter. So that covers the expenses of a boat. You your crew, all your maintenance expenses and things like that. Anything above that is like a profit to the owner. So. Oleksij Rak: you And do you provide the crew or is it like owners? Barbara Gabriel: Yes. No, no, we provide the crew. I mean, there are some owners that want to have a say in their crews. So we will vet the crews first and then send them like five captains to choose from, four different chefs and things like that. Some of them don't want to be involved at all. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, they just give it away and... Barbara Gabriel: Surprise me. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, with regards to this model being a marketplace, marketplaces is always some kind of chicken and egg problem. So you do not have buyers until you have sellers and vice versa. So how hard is it to scale your business? How hard is it to onboard new yachts and at the same time, like, group the... Barbara Gabriel: The yacht sales are a funny thing. right after COVID, for example, and during COVID, the yacht sales had gone through the roof. Everybody wanted a yacht. They felt safe to have a yacht that they could move, that they could... It was like something that wasn't on land. ⁓ After that, the yacht sales dropped. We saw that there was a drop in the sales of yachts. Oleksij Rak: . Barbara Gabriel: But then of course there's owners that have gotten used to this. And so, I mean, they're either going for bigger yachts or newer yachts. you know, they'll recommend somebody else. But yeah, basically like this way. I mean, I've never had a problem getting yachts. I'm at a point of saying no to yachts. Oleksij Rak: ⁓ do see trends that like travel like guests from us? I've like a times already that like they're not really easily coming over to Europe. Barbara Gabriel: Now, with the last 10 days, yes, I'm seeing it. Before, no. No, I was not seeing that. like, our clients are getting much younger. You know, we have this Gen Z that is, they have made money, that they are more adventurous than, you know, the older generation. So, I think they're more adventurous. Oleksij Rak: before. Mm-hmm. Adventures. Barbara Gabriel: to say yes, ⁓ they're not so affected, but your older clients, yes, definitely. You see, they're more worried. Oleksij Rak: And what's the usual demographics like? What is like the edge split? Barbara Gabriel: The age groups? I get from really, really old to extremely young. I mean, I've had clients that were paying close to 100,000 euros and they were like 25 year olds. So. You know, tech savvy kids. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, and how are they different in terms of like travel expectations? Barbara Gabriel: ⁓ I think the younger generation is more demanding ⁓ than the older generation, I'm finding. ⁓ It's easier to please the older generation, the younger generation, because they've seen more or, you know, it's, I think it's a lot different because the older generation has gathered their money to do this when they're retired. Okay, so it's like one of their bucket list dreams. Whereas the younger generation, I mean, they've got it easy, you know, and you'll see in the bookings too, the older generation will start planning their holiday a year in advance. The younger generation will be sitting at a bar and like, do you want to go on a holiday next week? So because everything is so tech savvy right now that they can do this just sitting at a bar, let's book. Sort of thing. ⁓ And you're seeing this, that's. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Yeah. Barbara Gabriel: This is the trend right now, depending on the demographic group of, know, if they're older or younger, you're seeing that's how the bookings are going to. So. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, but you don't need to be like to react faster, way faster with them because they will not wait three days for the 18th. In three days, they will forget who you are. Barbara Gabriel: Yes. Oh, no, no, they will. Definitely not. Exactly. I have a lot of staff. I have a really good team. So, I mean, we've got girls that are working the night shifts because, you know, if we're getting the request from the states. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. What do you do about it? Your team needs to move faster. Barbara Gabriel: We have girls working, so we have different chefs so that we make sure that we answer quite on time. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. And with regards to like new returns with AI, with AI agents and stuff, did you start, does it make sense for your business? Because it's really deeply personal, but still, know, everybody's like every business owner, every investor is like talking about efficiencies, like optimizing, automating. Barbara Gabriel: Sure, mean, we're all using AI right now. I mean, it's so much easier to answer something, you you put it in AI and I mean, anyone who says to me that they don't use AI is in business is lying. Okay, we all use it. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, makes sense. Are you streamlining this kind of stuff in your company? Like, are you putting some processes around, like automating all these steps? You could have, like, you know, you could have an ⁓ AI agent who responds to your client first before you jump in. ⁓ Barbara Gabriel: Yeah, the thing is still is putting the parameters. So because this is really bespoke, we don't have, let's say, the departure is a fixed date, like an airline, okay, that's leaving on Monday or Tuesday at this time. So everything or leaving from one particular place, ⁓ always we have to look at every request and sort of say, okay, we got have two days to get the boat there. So this is putting the parameters in there yet. ⁓ I don't think I have that yet. Oleksij Rak: Okay, you'll get there. Everybody is moving there, for sure. What else do you see in terms of shifts? maybe you see something that the rest of the market is not seeing yet. Barbara Gabriel: Yeah, I'm sure. ⁓ We're seeing a lot of tourism is based on wellness and things like that. I'm seeing a very big trend to this. ⁓ It's not just ⁓ a charter anymore. It's going towards, you're seeing a lot of people are going towards the wellness route. So we're trying to work on that even more, to offer more like a package of having a... a dietitian on board, know, a masseur, this yoga, all of these things. So definitely seeing a trend right now that wellness is probably one of the biggest trends that is happening right now. Oleksij Rak: Yoga. Do people tend to get off work or is it just like visiting Marines restaurants? Do people want some localized like... Barbara Gabriel: ⁓ Zayden. Zayden. Zayden never get off. Oleksij Rak: I'll get off Barbara Gabriel: Well, no, they do. mean, they'll go into town. But basically, mean, the boats have... Well, no, no. I mean, they'll eat better on the yacht because we've got chefs on board, okay? And instead of going to a restaurant where you have to wait or what you'll get served or the quality of the food, you will see that unless they've got a very specific restaurant in mind, ⁓ they'll go maybe once and eat off the yacht. ⁓ Oleksij Rak: I paid for this yag, Barbara Gabriel: They'll usually 99 % eat on the yacht. Then you've got all the water toys on board. You know, we've got the sea bobs, paddle boards, e-foils, know, snorkeling, all of this. So there's things to keep them busy. And you see that it takes up a lot of their time. they only go off to go into town to do some shopping or to see a site. And then they're back. It's one of our things that we keep discussing with the crew. How do we get the clients off for a couple of hours so that the crew can decompress a bit? Because they're living on a boat 24 hours a day with a client. It's very different. You're in a small space. It's not like a hotel. It's on a boat. Oleksij Rak: them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I I never thought from that perspective, but I can imagine how hard it is for the crew. And usually the tour takes like, what, seven, 10 days? Barbara Gabriel: Seven, 10 days around there. Yeah. Usually. Oleksij Rak: Okay. So yeah, it's pretty packed for... And they have no reason to get here. Barbara Gabriel: Yeah, and you know, and every day they want to be somewhere else and you know, they want to be in a different bay. So, I mean, it's always, they're always on the move. It's not like, okay, let's sit in a bay for a week. It's every day at different locations. Oleksij Rak: And how do you manage these micro-challenges that they get? Like, don't know, damaged finger, Like, damaged finger, whatever. So there is also something that happens, you know. And since you're on the yacht, you're far from the shore. Barbara Gabriel: And so, yeah. Which? ⁓ when you have... sure, okay. Okay, yes, okay. So one of challenges that we face is crew leaving sometimes, okay? Like the boat comes back on Saturday, it goes out on a Sunday, 24 hours later. So we need to find a replacement for one of the crew members that either had an accident, has decided to quit. ⁓ So I've got a crew manager that handles all of that. We've always got standby people. Then when an accident happens with the clients, well, we're on top of it. I mean, we're there, we're supporting. If we have to send a helicopter, if we have to send a speedboat or... I've had a lot of things, different things happen. Oleksij Rak: I'm always forgetting that it's luxury. Another level of solving problems. Barbara Gabriel: Yeah, so... Yeah, so no, we solve it this way. mean, always in conjunction with the office, but we're always there, you know, our phones never go off, they're on 24 hours a day, the summer is grueling for us, but okay. Making people dream though, and making their holidays unforgettable for me is my biggest reward. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can imagine that. With regards to still market trends, did you see any change in acquisition channels? Because my personal company, we've experienced change in Google for the reasons how they interact with traffic behaviors and... Barbara Gabriel: Well, think clients are now more, they search before they would find a nice website and say, okay, this looks good and I'll book this. Well, now they're going and they're looking at your reviews. They're looking at your social media. They're looking, they investigate because, I mean, let's not kid ourselves. I've purchased things on the internet and never got them and it was a scam. You're seeing that if you don't make the client feel at ease and that you are somebody that really exists and that there is people behind there. This is a thing that I'm seeing that, you know, once we started getting our clients to fill in a Google review, things went much differently. People want to read, people want to see. ⁓ So, yes, definitely. Oleksij Rak: . It's very easy nowadays for them. So you just ask your AI assistant and you get all the information. Or you just search because the generation got used to searching everything. So, yeah, please. Barbara Gabriel: now. Yeah. yeah. So, so this is, you know, like I said, all of this, I mean, we are now a digital, a digital marketing, ⁓ you know, thing, you know, if you don't have a digital presence, years ago, didn't work like this. Now you need to have a digital presence. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, we've seen you have some YouTube channel with like Yacht related content. Like what else do you do in terms of presence in social media? Barbara Gabriel: So, okay, I mean, we're on all the social media channels, but we have found that putting a face to, I mean, it's nice to look at pictures of pretty yachts, but they want to also see the people behind. They want to see the crews. So we have now done more interactive in social media, getting crews to interview, you know, I'm talking on the social media, girls from my office are introducing boats. We're seeing that the more you are presenting this at a more personalized level rather than just pretty pictures, you get a much better response back. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, absolutely. And did you ask your clients to generate some reviews? Some video talks, whatever? Because people tend to trust other people, not the company itself. Barbara Gabriel: Sure. Yeah, well, you know the problem is a lot of clients I mean, don't know holidays are kind of precious So like I said, I put them to put on a google review But I mean nobody sort of wants to show their family on holidays. Those are very personal moments ⁓ so I mean if they want to share a picture with us, yes, I mean it's something that we always tell our crew you cannot upload any content You know ⁓ or send it to us of a client, the client has to tag us because that's the correct way. So, you know, this is, excuse me, this is always causing, you know, we have to be careful of people's privacy. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, because it's privacy, especially in luxury segments. Barbara Gabriel: Yeah, you'd be surprised, know, it's, they're living on a boat. You're living in their house with them, you know, basically. So. Oleksij Rak: And with regards to the future, what you're betting on and what you're building for. Barbara Gabriel: What am I waiting on? Peace. Peace. Oleksij Rak: Bye. Barbara Gabriel: So always there's something that just seems to come up every single year and it's, you know, just learning to adapt to each thing that happens in a very quick manner or, you know, restructuring or things like this, you know, and it's just It's why I always say to an owner, know, it's better on a boat than a villa because you can always move it. You know, if something is happening somewhere, you can always station your boat somewhere else and operate it somewhere else in the world. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's also healthy with seasonality. You cannot move a hotel, you know. Barbara Gabriel: No, no, but you can move a boat business, which is what makes it attractive. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, absolutely. Awesome, awesome. What prevents you from growing? What's the biggest obstacle to grow further? Barbara Gabriel: My age. Oleksij Rak: That's your enthusiasm. I feel it, you know. Barbara Gabriel: No, okay. Just joking. Okay. That does play a role. I mean, I've been doing this business for over 35 years. ⁓ So it's a long time. At some point I would like to retire, but I'm still going strong and I like what I do, which I think this is important in any business. You've got to like what you do. You have to love it. Oleksij Rak: Okay. Barbara Gabriel: You know, and every business has their ups and downs and you know bad days and good days But if you love it, then it's okay. So you you can continue to grow Oleksij Rak: And it's a good new business to love, Barbara Gabriel: Yeah, it is. I do love my business. I tried once many years ago, said, ⁓ I can't do this anymore. It's just too grueling. But I was back after three months. It's a bit of a drug. It's a bit of a drug. Oleksij Rak: But besides the age, what is that? What is harder to grow, the buyer or the other side? Barbara Gabriel: Well, I think one of the biggest challenges that we are facing slowly is the... We have a lot of new platforms that have come out that are very generic. And so as our clientele changes, I'm not sure... if this bespoke travel will end up surviving sort of thing, you know, like, ⁓ I think this is a challenge. People, it's the way that the younger generation books. ⁓ I don't know if this trend will start changing and, you know, they'll just be more generic in their bookings. So this is definitely a problem that I foresee in the future. ⁓ And this is something, you know, that we will see sort of how it goes. Oleksij Rak: I mean like competition with like bigger generic platforms that like provide everything. Barbara Gabriel: Yes, exactly. Generic platforms, you know, where they promise the sun, the moon and the stars and basically they're not offering the same service, but you know, it's very hard to convey this if, you know, if they're just not talking to somebody, if it's all generic oriented. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, and if it's online and you cannot differ, everybody has nice pictures of Yaksino. So yeah, and I hear that a lot from niche businesses. This is a danger for niche business as a global platforms. And how do you deal with that in your case? Barbara Gabriel: Exactly. Yeah. Well, how do we deal with it? Still, we don't have a problem, but it's something that's coming for sure. ⁓ We are still trying to keep a niche in this business. I mean, there is the generic, but, you know, as the boats are getting bigger and more expensive, we still have the clients that are still not don't want the generic. But Oleksij Rak: Ha. Yeah. Yeah. Barbara Gabriel: You just have to keep getting bigger boats and offering more and things like that and not making it such a packaged thing, ⁓ making it more bespoke. I think that's the only way that we can deal with this at the moment. Oleksij Rak: But you're also doing a lot of individual stuff, it's really like individual approach, personalized approach. I'm also hearing a lot about shift towards like travelers want to get personalized human approach. This is something you can compete with with generic. This is your differentiator because you're doing that. Generic platform cannot do that. Barbara Gabriel: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. No, it can't. It will probably eventually, but not at the moment. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, it does not sound promising. Barbara Gabriel: I'm hopefully won't be around then. But technology is moving really fast. It's moving at the speed of light. So who knows? Oleksij Rak: Yeah, they are. Yeah, it's strange world nowadays with technologies moving at the speed of light, as you say, and at the same time, you know, we got all this wars and stuff. So you just cannot understand what's happening. What's next? Barbara Gabriel: Yeah, exactly. Nobody knows what's next. We just hope for a better future. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, we do. Awesome. That was really great discussion. Before we wrap it up, ⁓ do you have anything you would like to add on top of what we discussed? Barbara Gabriel: Holidays, it's such a everybody needs a reboot. So I think holidays are important and and I think we need to enjoy life Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Sometimes we need to forget, not to forget about that. You're buried with work and like you just die. what did I like? It's another year past. Yeah. Barbara Gabriel: Exactly. ⁓ ⁓ We need to learn to turn off our electronic equipment and just go silent for a bit. Oleksij Rak: On the yacht. Barbara Gabriel: on a yacht. I have a lot of parents that say, don't tell the kids there's internet on board. Don't tell the kids there's internet. They want their kids to get off their phones. Oleksij Rak: and that makes sense. Awesome. Thanks a lot, Berber, for coming. And it's really interesting conversation about Yacht business. That's the whole end. Good luck to you with the best of luck with everything you're trying to accomplish. Barbara Gabriel: Thank you. I hope to see you in Greece on one of our boats. Whenever you're in our neighborhood, give me a call. Oleksij Rak: Awesome. I have an idea to go to Greece with friends in summer season. We'll see. We'll see. Well, thanks a lot. Thanks a lot and have a great time. Barbara Gabriel: Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. All right. Bye bye.