Boatbuilding in Italy: market trends and expectations for 2025

Italian Marine Industry Association (Confindustria Nautica) has published its fresh report named “Boating in Figures – Market trends for 2024/2025” (La Nautica in Cifre Monitor – Trend di Mercato 2024/2025), which monitors the state of the industry and makes a forecast for the current year 

The conclusions are based on the survey run among shipyards, boating equipment and engine manufacturers, charter companies, yacht clubs and marinas. It included the data on changes in order books in the period from December 2023 to December 2024, as well as entrepreneurs’ market assessment. 

In general, Italian yachting industry prospects are evaluated as quite promising, but largely due to the superyacht segment, retaining its global leadership with 572 yachts over 24 metres under construction in Italy out of a total of 1138 worldwide. The country remains the world’s largest exporter: 4.5 billion euros last year. 

After really good results of 2023, according to the experts, the industry was heading towards the normalization of growth. In 2024, when the economic setting grew more challenging, different sectors demonstrated a wider difference between market dynamics: the demand for high-end manufacturers remained high, while smaller and cheaper craft producers experienced uncertainties across a number of markets.

For 34% of companies, order books in the superyacht segment are either growing or stabilizing. The remaining 66% report moderate contraction (5-10%). 

As for the vessels under 24 metres in length, 22% of respondents anticipate an increase in turnover, 45% expect stabilisation and 33% expect a reduction.

Among the negative factors mentioned there are high interest rates, political tensions that affect consumer confidence and, therefore, demand. Foreign competitors are there, too: although it is believed that the yachts Made in Italy do not compete with US-made models directly, at the same time, US exports to Italy have almost doubled over the course of the last twelve months, compared to the previous year. Concerns over the international tariff conflicts keep growing in Europe, too, as they may impact the costs and supply to America.

In the equipment and engines segment, 16% of companies expect to see an increase in turnover in 2025, 63% expect a stable trend, and 21% forecast a reduction.

In the charter segment, 79% of respondents stated that the average value of weeks sold in 2024 either increased or remained stable. 50% of the respondents expect some growth in the coming season, 43% expect turnover to stabilise and 7% are predicting a slight contraction (within 5%). 

As for nautical tourism, one can observe moderate optimism here: according to Italy’s national marinas association (Assomarinas), estimates show increases ranging from +1.5% in berth sales to +3.2% in transit berths.