With Acquera, CEO Stefano Tositti is Redefining The Role of a Yacht Agent
Ferretti Group announces new UAE and Oman dealer, Dubai introduces biofuel options for yachts.
To establish a superyacht destination, the most commonly listed elements would include infrastructure such as marinas, a streamlined entry and exit process, and an alluring itinerary. In this assessment, there is one glaring omission, one vital to the success of luxury tourism: the people. The agents who will work behind the scenes for the vessel.
And you might wonder what the job entails, what it’s like telling a client they can’t use their yacht to enter the Grand Canal or land a hydroplane in front of San Marco. Thats just another day for Stefano Tositti, one of the foremost leaders in the yacht services space. The Founder and CEO of Acquera Yachting is the subject of this month’s feature, discussing his plans to expand his superyacht agency, the introduction of Acquera Club, and the need to train future generations of yacht agents.
There was no shortage of news to start the year, particularly with Ferretti Group. The Italian boat house signed a partnership with AAA Marine, the new authorized dealer for Ferretti’s range of brands in the UAE and Oman. Meanwhile, the yard has brought on a new Kuwaiti investor who has acquired a 3 per cent stake in the company.
All the best,
Faisal
Ask any leader about the conception of their successful business, and they will pinpoint you to that “light bulb” moment, the sudden arrival of a winning idea. It was back in the early 2000s in Italy when Stefano Tositti, then at the helm of the family shipping business, first had that realization. After coincidentally assisting the first yacht to come into the port of Venice, he capitalized on the opportunity to fill a white space in the superyacht service sector. Now, Tositti serves as the founder and CEO of superyacht agency Acquera Yachting. Years later, he would spot another opportunity to capitalize on an untapped market: a concierge service dedicated to yacht owners both in and out of their vessels.
With a career spanning over two decades, Tositti has seen the yachting business grow to the behemoth it has become today. Here, he muses on the evolution of the service provider sector, the shift in client priorities, the rise of new destinations, and mulls the importance of nurturing the next generation of agents for the sake of the industry’s future.
Okay, but what exactly does an agent do?
“A Captain realises the need for an agent when he/she has not appointed one,” Superyacht photographer Guy Fleury once said, an apt distillation of the job Tositti still has trouble explaining to the Everyman. “They say, oh, what are you doing? Are you selling yachts? Are you a chartering agent? They think that’s our job. When I say, oh, we are a large concierge, then they understand much easier,” says Tositti, who therefore characterizes a superyacht agent as a concoction of two elements. “Yachting is a combination of technical knowledge and high-level concierge.”
From managing berthing details, furnishing provisions and supplies, or providing fiscal and logistical advice, the role of a superyacht agent is inextricable from a seamless visit to any country. But while the commercial and leisure sectors share the term “agent,” Tositti knows all too well that there is a 180-degree distinction between them. Shipping is a very structured industry, where the agent has a clear role that goes from A to B or to C or to D. A yacht agent, because it’s leisure, brings the yacht agent to go from A to Z., so the attitude and knowledge have to be very different. You can be asked to do other things which are normally not strictly related to the role of a yachting agent.”
This is attributed to the skills needed to handle the unpredictable nature of the yacht industry, which comes with the territory. “They change their mind, they change their plans, they change their length of stay, they add, or they cancel things which they’ve ordered one hour before. That’s leisure, that’s the privilege.”
He has witnessed the changes of a service provider’s role firsthand, and it has come in tandem with the shift in the way society now communicates. “The way we operate, how we interact as human beings, has changed in 15 years. I don’t know whether we could be called yacht agent, yacht concierge, or 24/7 agents,” Tositti quips, speaking to the expectation of instant responses and 24/7 availability today’s technology has instilled, which in his view has vastly enhanced correspondence between parties. “You are expecting an answer immediately, whether it is midday or midnight. On one side, because of fast communication, the quality of the service has improved a lot.”
On the other hand, this always-online mode, coupled with the growing size and number of today’s fleet, has elevated the job to a new level. “Getting larger vessels and getting larger crews, the number of requests has increased quite a lot. It has really put a lot more pressure on our shoulders as agents in general. Communicating has changed not only for yachts, but also for our normal life.” And while this division of the business was principally in communication with the crew, Tositti saw an opportunity to manage the client’s free time as well.
Acquera Club: A personal concierge tailored to elevating your experiences
While there is no shortage of luxury concierge services around the world, a study of the lifestyle market presented a startling revelation to ACQ Group: there is no enterprise specifically tailored to yacht owners. Tositti aimed to seize that niche segment with the launch of Acquera Club, a members-only exclusive service. “Adding a network of offices in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, and the Middle East, we thought, why don’t we leverage our local knowledge and bring this kind of expertise in high-level concierge?” If other agencies can be seen as made-to-measure, this is a bespoke offering.
To maintain the highest quality of service and ensure members are attended to in the most personalized way possible, Acquera Club limits admission and pairs each manager with two clients only. It is worth mentioning that it extends its invitation to non-yacht owning UHNWIs and serves owners in the time spent outside their vessels. “We organize their time, their nature, and when they travel. We are organizing a lot of things where the yachts are not involved. They are yacht owners, but the client is also going to Paris, to Morocco, to the UK, to the Seychelles, to Maldive, whatever, no?”
For Tositti, the success of this endeavor necessitated employing a different business model, separate from the agency arm - a crucial distinction between both ventures. “Acquera Yachting is a B2B activity (business to business). Our counterparties are other stakeholders in the business: Captains, chefs, engineers, and management companies; we rarely deal with the guest or owner. The Club is centrally a B2C (business to consumer); we talk directly to the client.” And one synergistic benefit of the Club operating under the ACQ umbrella is that members will make use of the agency’s resources when visiting a yachting destination. “What differentiates us from others is that we can also, in many locations, offer the last mile. If a client is going to Porto Cervo, they can also get all our advantages, all the connections, all the relations with our local office.” Fortunately, the number of yachting hotspots is only increasing.
New locations on the itinerary: emerging yachting haunts
At the time of Acquera’s launch, choosing a base region for a superyacht service provider did not require much thought. “The Mediterranean was our priority number one, because it is the market. There are over 2800 Yachts in the summer, over 30 meters. If today’s global fleet is around 6000 boats, then almost half of the global market is the Mediterranean only.”
Today, while the Mediterranean remains the dominant region, more options are springing up. Thanks to a pandemic-fueled surge in demand for yachting, coupled with the introduction of younger UHNWIs, Tositti took quick notice of a new trend: “We see more and more young owners, and some of the owners who are using the family yacht have different kinds of requests from their family or their father. They also choose different kinds of locations. There is a new trend of going to the usual places, yes, but there is now more of the part related to the discovery side.”
As a result, the company has branched out to some of those new places, namely the Caribbean and the Middle East. The former, an established winter hotspot, and the latter, an emerging market brimming with potential. “The Caribbean will always stay there. I mean, I don’t see the Caribbean disappearing, but of course, the Middle East could have a lot of attraction.” Between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, countries in the area have spearheaded efforts to promote luxury tourism to attract foreign flagged-vessels.
One reason to see success in the prospects of the region, in Tositti’s view, boils down to the strategic geographic positioning and distance. “It is not far away, and of course, we have extremely beautiful countries to visit from Egypt to Saudi Arabia to the Emirates to Oman. It’s also very close to the Maldives.”
Meanwhile, Tositti also acknowledges the investment in infrastructure made to provide the coming super yachts with the requisite facilities. “The countries have tried over there to build infrastructure, which I think they are achieving. There are a number of projects in all of these countries that are already being realized, or some of them are in the process of being realized.” On the other hand, he also sees the regulatory side as one area for improvement, pushing for “clear rules and the much more understandable regulations for navigation in some of these countries.”
Although the region’s prospects in the past two years of attracting foreign vessels have been bruised by geopolitical tensions and skyrocketing insurance rates, Tositti remains confident in the long term outlook. “But I’m convinced that with the capabilities and the. determination of the countries, they will take their market share. I don’t think this is going to happen overnight, nor in one year; it will take some years to get there.”
With the fundamentals of building a superyacht destination in place, Tositti has one major concern for the future of not only the region, but the industry as a whole: who’s going to attend to the boats in the decades to come ?
Next Generation of Yacht Agents
If the vessels are the heart of the yacht service agency, the people are its pulse. It is this team of experts who move mountains to fulfill a client’s request that keeps the sector afloat, and has always been central to Acquera’s mission. “The human part is essential to that. We are not producing products, we’re not building things, we don’t have machines. We are a service provider, so we are giving an intangible service, which becomes tangible only when you use it.” So what happens when future generations of the trade are not guaranteed? “If you don’t train, if you don’t build a proper academy, a proper school, a proper educational program, you will end up having big infrastructure, but no people attending to the boats for any different jobs, and that’s, I think, the major problem.”
Securing the emerging talents for the yachting workforce has been regarded as a cause of concern in multiple parts of the yachting sphere, from refit sector to yacht agenting, as the industry has fallen vulnerable to other vocations which are more attractive to younger generations “They are grown and they are from another kind of century, so they have other types of priorities, some of them, but more than everything, we are lacking education: the training side, the schools for our type of job, there are no schools for our type of job, for yachting agencies or shore-based jobs. At least that is what we are aware of,” he says. “I’m talking about the physically young person who has studied in a university, either locally or around the world, why should they be stuck in a place working 24/7?”
If anyone could surmount those challenges, it is Tositti. “As a CEO of a multinational company, I have to think ahead, not only about the short term, but about the middle and long term.” To address the issue, Acquera has already taken initiative with the introduction of a training institute. “We have already started an academy to try to train young generations and bring them to the industry, giving them a little bit of background and knowledge with professors.”
So when discussing the strategies for building up destinations like the Middle East, the agents available should be regarded as vital as the marinas and regulations. “But in general, I believe the main effort is to try to build the workforce and the expertise over there,” says Tositti, while emphasizing the importance of developing homegrown talent. “You cannot import everybody from outside. You must also give jobs and opportunities to locals who may be interested in entering,” He says. “Local expertise is essential. What we are working on is trying to combine the local knowledge, the local expertise, which is essential, but with a bigger global picture.”
The Way Forward
Only those who have experienced what is asked for in the job know that it can be thankless. The sacrifices made and the pressure withstood to ensure every transit, every seamless port arrival, and facilitate every aspect of a yacht’s visit illustrate why agents are the unsung heroes of the industry. For Tositti, the devotion and commitment to the betterment of the industry were not short of challenges, but the past does not concern him. “I always like to, more than think behind, think ahead. Because if I look behind, then there is not much fun in that. It’s more exciting to look at what we can do tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.”
Since assisting that first yacht in Venice, leading one superyacht agency, and starting his own project from scratch - starting from two employees to a 150-strong team today, there is a specific quality that has allowed him to remain resilient in a ruthless business, and his guiding principle shows us what separates the successful from the ones who had the idea but capitulated along the way. “Although I’m not 30 years old, I still have this kind of energy and enthusiasm, which I definitely believe is an important driver of our daily life.” His journey thus far has shown it is not only about getting that “light bulb” idea but also about acting on it. And he is just getting started.
Ferretti Group appoints AAA Marine as new UAE and Oman dealer
Italian shipbuilder Ferretti Group has inked a deal with AAA Marine, a merger between Al Otaiba Investment and RIC Holding, to become the authorized dealer of the brand in the UAE and Oman.
The deal, signed at Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi, will see AAA Marine as the regional representative of the shipyard’s core brands: Ferretti, Riva, Pershing, and Itama.
Dubai Marinas Rollout Biofuel Options For Yachts
Emaar Group, in collaboration with Lootah Biofuels, has launched a biofuel option for superyachts berthed at Dubai Marina and Creek Marina. This move aligns with the UAE’s Net-Zero goals for 2050.
Vessels will be able to access the lower-carbon alternative at dedicated refuelling stations found at both marinas. The fuel, specifically designed for yachts, comes from recycled vegetable oils (UCO) stemming from Emaar’s hotels and residential facilities.
Kuwaiti Investment Firm Acquires 3 Percent Stake in Ferretti Group
Bader Nasser Al Kharafi, a Kuwaiti businessman, has announced the acquisition of a 3 percent stake in Italian superyacht builder Ferretti Group.
The deal, done through his investment firm BNK Holdings, is part of a “broader strategic plan to build a global portfolio focused primarily on high-end assets and high-quality companies”.