How to extend your boat rental season

Why the length of your season matters so much

You pay for the berth, the insurance and the depreciation on your boats anyway, whether you’re open for five months or eight. Every week you add brings in revenue against costs you already had. An extra week isn’t entirely free, because you need people on the dock and the boats have to be clean and charged. But it costs a lot less than a new boat with a berth and insurance on top.

At the sloop rental where I worked, the first bookings came in on the first sunny weekend of March. They went to the rentals that were already open.

Five ways to extend your season

• Open earlier. On the first warm day of spring, lots of people want to be on the water. Put your opening date on your website early, so customers know they can already book. A discount code for the first few weeks brings in a few more.
• Stay open longer. September and October still have plenty of good rental days, with company outings, fall break, people who’d rather avoid the summer crowds, and customers with a discount code they still have to use that year. You don’t have to open every day, because shorter opening hours are often enough. For us, company outings kept a lot of quiet September days going. They were planned weeks ahead and went ahead even when the weather wasn’t great.
• Boats that can handle a shower. A canopy or a bimini keeps the rain out, and with a few blankets and something warm on board, a chilly day is still a nice day. People don’t cancel as quickly then. On the Amsterdam canals you can wait out a shower under a bridge, but at our location in Loosdrecht you couldn’t, because there isn’t a bridge in sight on the lakes. So there, the canopies were always on board.
• Prices that move with the season. Outside summer there’s less demand, so a lower price or a fall package can be just enough to get someone to book. In spring an early bird price helps, so whoever books ahead pays less. There’s more on pricing through the year in the right pricing model for your boat rental.
• A reason to come. Think of a trip past the fall colors, a cruise followed by dinner at a restaurant on the water, or an evening past the lights on the Amsterdam canals in winter. We ran those evening trips too, and out on the water it could get properly cold. So there were blankets in the boats, and we poured hot chocolate on the dock. You can sell an extra like that at a lower price or together with the trip, and offer it only on the trips where it fits.

Not every location suits it

In a city with tourists all year, staying open late is easier than on a lake where day-trippers mostly come when the sun is out. So look at last year’s bookings first. Which weeks still had bookings, and when did it really stop? Those last good weeks are the first ones to extend.

How to set it up in Let’s Book

In Let’s Book you give each season its own start date and its own prices, so you can set up spring and fall differently from summer. You fill the quiet weeks with early bird and last minute prices and with discount codes. When a boat has to come out of rental for a few days for maintenance or bad weather, you put a blockout period on it. You also choose which bookings an add-on is offered to, so hot chocolate or a blanket only shows up on the winter trips. Sales insights show what you sold over the period you pick, next to the same stretch of last year.

Book a demo if you’d like to see how it works, or ask for a test login.