Renting the boat with the guarantees of travel agencies

In our article“Renting a boat online, here are 6 unforeseen pitfalls,” we pointed out the risks of do-it-yourself online booking of a boating vacation without guarantees. Our reader, Gianni Costetti, of Navalia SRL, an industry specialist since 1996, wrote to us about this. We receive and publish his contribution.

Renting the boat without surprises, the guarantees of travel agencies

Sorry editor, but among the solutions proposed in the article article “Renting boat online, here are 6 contingencies“ to avoid the “disservices” of portals, the best and simplest one is missing: relying on the
travel agencies
specializing in nautical tourism. In Italy there are dozens of travel agencies that have been operating in nautical tourism for years, and they know the market, they protect, by law, from A to Z, the customer.

Here are the guarantees of a travel agency specializing in nautical tourism:

• only travel agencies guarantee the money paid in
• travel agencies have x law
  • technical director
  • liability insurance
  • “bankruptcy” insurance = money paid to a travel agency is guaranteed even if the travel agency goes bankrupt.

Only travel agencies by law can collect money before travel begins. Agencies are directly accountable to their clients, and in the event of a claim, if they cannot answer for it themselves, they are obliged to have insurance to protect them.

Beware also of so-called “maritime brokers”

Beware also of so-called “maritime brokers,” they are unsafe, as they do not do the real job of the broker, which would be: find suitable solutions to the client’s demands, have the money paid directly to the shipowning company but exposing the client to the risk of bankruptcy of the shipowning company, then invoice the client for the commission. Very few are correct and operate in this way. Nearly all of them collect the money themselves and then turn it over to the shipowning companies (deducting their commission) and thus exposing their client to a double risk in case of their bankruptcy + bankruptcy of the shipowning company as stated above.

Gianni Costetti, of Navalia SRL