Pioneering inclusion: boatfolk’s accessible boating vision

boatfolk, a private equity-backed UK marina group created from the 2019 merger between established marina chains Quay Marinas and Dean & Reddyhoff, offers a network of facilities throughout the British Isles. Group commercial director, Dominic Zammit, challenges the industry to rethink marina management by prioritising people. He talks to Mel Symes.

With legal training and experience in digital strategy and brand management, Zammit was brought in to oversee the merger and craft the new brand identity. As group commercial director, he is responsible for the strategic direction of the group of boatfolk companies, including setting out long-term vision from both a commercial and growth perspective. The challenge of his role was compounded by a complete lack of knowledge about boats and boating culture.
“I came to the industry completely new to it and couldn’t really see what the purpose of a marina really was beyond a parking facility for boats. What was glaringly obvious as a non-boater, however, was that this was a surprisingly inward-looking industry that talked more to itself than to anyone outside of it. At the time, Southampton Boat Show, the UK’s hero platform for broadcasting boating to the nation, seemed to prioritise providing an opportunity for industry members to sell products, as opposed to creating energy and enthusiasm around the consumer base. This echoed a large gap in the strategic vision for UK marina groups and fuelled our mission to make it easy for anyone to get on the water.”
Q: Can you describe how you’ve worked to address this gap?
A: We’ve worked hard to position ourselves as the accessible marina group that does everything for the benefit of the boater. This has been a natural build on the Quay Marinas and Dean & Reddyhoff legacy of being all about the people; all about the boater. This was the essence of the feedback from the industry prior to the merger and has followed on as the vision for boatfolk, now and for the future.
If someone hasn’t been brought up in boating, then it’s admittedly not an easy pastime to get into. But it seems almost absurd to us that in such a small island nation, with so much coastline within two hours’ travel from most parts of the UK, boating represents such a niche in terms of leisure pastime.
We run a programme called #boatgen for young people from 11-21, where we provide awareness about how to get into boating and help remove the barriers - providing kit, training and access, all heavily subsidised or free of charge. We run outreach with schools and partner with charities like the Andrew Simpson Foundation and the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, as well as sea schools around the UK, to give young people the chance to get out on the water for the first time – particularly those from minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds. To increase the chances of long-term engagement, part of our focus is on creating pathways. We try to give each young person who comes through a #boatgen participation event access to other aspects of the industry – whether that’s apprenticeship opportunities or direct hire. The Andrew Simpson Foundation also offers the means to obtain diploma qualifications or take part in training instruction programmes.
All this, of course, serves our commercial strategy since, ideally, in 20 years or so, having had their first taste of boating via boatfolk, we hope to be their first choice when they look to purchase their first boat.
Q: What about your other services: boatpoint, boatcare and Beyonder?
A: The first step for a new boater isn’t usually to locate a marina, but rather to find a boat they want to buy. Through boatpoint, we currently sell more boats than any other broker in the UK, so chances are that they’re going to buy their first boat from us. We launched our boatpoint brokerage business in 2020 and have been on a growth mission ever since. We now have eight offices around the UK, positioned in strategic points where there are brokerage opportunities and market potential. The natural synergy between our marinas and our brokerage offices has been very successful.
With everything in-house, we’re able to leverage unique opportunities for the boater, such as offering discounted berthing up until the boat is sold, etc., providing a clear competitive advantage. With 70+ boatcare (maintenance and repair) engineers across the UK, both sellers and buyers can get all the necessary maintenance work carried out within the same company.
Key to our success is the fact that the boatpoint brand is underpinned on the same philosophy of the wider boatfolk family: accessibility and approachability. The brokerage market was ripe for innovation when we introduced boatpoint and we were able to benefit from the surge of interest in buying boats fuelled by COVID. Since then, we’ve endeavoured to reduce any friction on the boat-buying journey. Our aim is to create a seamless transition from the boat purchase to the marina berth and to deliver a consistently rounded and relaxing customer experience.
Beyonder, our boat subscription service, available in three of our marinas, is now fully booked, which is fantastic. This is perhaps another of the factors that has led to our customer demographic becoming steadily younger.
Additionally, we’re very active online; almost all our marketing is digital. Within the marinas we bolster the destination-related attractions with our own restaurants and hotel rooms, using them as gateways into the other parts of the boating site. These various layers then contribute to extending awareness of boatfolk and encouraging people to give boating a go.
Q: No hurdles?
A: Oh goodness, of course!! We’ve found entering the world of hospitality a huge challenge, particularly in a post-COVID, weakened economy, and are moving towards a process of re-tenanting our existing restaurants. Ultimately, whilst restaurants are absolutely central to enhancing the marina experience, we recognise that the marina business is not the hospitality business. We’ve invested some £7 million in our restaurants over recent years and that’s really brought up the standard in each location. But, fortunately, we’re now in a position where we can hand them off to professional operators who can take them to the next level and return our focus to our core boating operations.
New boat sales have also been tricky, but this reflects the status quo globally, with a softening boat sales market post-COVID and the economy driving a reluctance to spend on new boats. On the other hand, brokerage of second-hand boats remains stable – so this is where we’re currently consolidating our efforts.
Q: How else have you been tackling social sustainability?
A: Beyond trying to make boating more accessible to different sectors of society, we’ve tried to ensure that we’re recruiting from as diverse a background as possible. We cast our net as wide as we can, with multiple people involved in the recruiting process to avoid a biased outcome. We’ve spent a lot of time organising training and education for our team around diversity and inclusion and this is reinforced with annual refresher training. We’ve also hired a People and Culture manager specifically to help with this shift in attitudes and behaviours and to help us move in a new direction. We’re engaging in the marine conversation at grassroots level via our communications strategy and try to provide good examples and inspiring leadership. Our staff demographic could do with improvement but I’m happy to say that our first #boatgen youth sailing team has an all-female crew!
Q: What about environmental sustainability?
A: From individual environmental stewardship initiatives in each marina, to a new five-year partnership set to start next year which will map marine biodiversity in and around marinas in the UK, we are tremendously active in this space. We are a supporting and founding partner of the Studland Bay Marine Partnership that involves the RYA, Natural England and the National Trust, the aim of which is to help raise awareness of more sustainable mooring practices and protection of the seabed. We’re also a mentor and partner of BrightTide, which next year will run an accelerator programme based on sustainability and AI for land-based agriculture and aquaculture. These projects involve local authority or government representation and are providing a means to take the conversation to MPs and policymakers.
All our energy comes from renewable sources and we’re just getting planning permission for installation of solar panels at a couple of marina sites. We’re continuing discussions with hydrothermal energy start-ups and considering water source heat pumps for shower heating.
Q: Would you say that as a result of your work, communication within the industry has changed?
A: I’d like to think that we have managed to create a shift in how marinas now promote their services. Previously marinas would predominantly showcase their pontoons, boat capacity and hoist size, but now the conversation moves more around sustainability, community engagement events, and what is being done to support the next generation of boaters. There’s been a palpable transformation, and I believe that boatfolk’s vision has been a catalyst for that with other marina chains following suit.
Does boatfolk have any plans to expand overseas?
“Well, never say never!” laughs Zammit. “Our priority for now, however, is to consolidate the existing marinas and roll out boatpoint and boatcare in each one, whilst broadening access to Beyonder. We want to create absolute parity within our estate in terms of what’s on offer and the level of service. Being private equity backed, there is invariably an imperative to continue to grow and develop. We’re always on the acquisition trail with a healthy pipeline to keep us busy.”
“Our current end goal is being the very best boating company in the UK. Our point of difference is that we’re the only truly national marina group. Strengthening that position and making sure that wherever you are, you can get to a boatfolk marina - this is what makes us an accessible brand.”