Increased attendance, sales for Fort Lauderdale show
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Kaye Pearson, president of Yachting Promotions, producer of the 44th annual Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show estimates that attendance at this year’s show will be about 12 to 15 percent higher than last year’s 124,000 attendees, the Miami Herald reported in an article Sunday.
At this year’s show, hundreds of exhibitors and over $1.6 billion worth of products will occupy over 3 million square feet at six different locations for the show, the Herald reported.
Pearson also told the newspaper that sales could top $600 million, or increase about $100 million from last year and $50 million over the record set in 2000.
Fort Lauderdale is a major showcase for multimillion-dollar, 80-plus-foot megayachts, which happens to be one of the industry’s segments that is growing, and this helps the overall revenue figures for the show. About 230 megayachts will be on display at the show, according to the Herald.
The show is specifically important to South Florida, which has a fifth of the state’s approximately 900,000 registered boats, nearly half of its 2,500 licensed brokers and salespeople and hundreds of marine-related businesses, the Herald stated.
With these kinds of numbers, Florida comes out as the third-largest state by registration and the largest boat market in terms of sales, Jack Ellis, managing director of Info-Link, a Miami firm that maintains an extensive database on the boating business, told the newspaper.
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