Having just celebrated their first anniversary, Charter Itinerary is going from strength to strength as it continues to change the world of yacht itinerary creation with its brilliantly easy-to-navigate and fully interactive web-based platform. Designed specifically with the yachting industry in mind, many of the biggest names in yachting have been added to the client list with more signing up almost daily. With well over 700 accounts, it is already transforming how industry professionals plan, produce and present itineraries and there’s no stopping there – there are some big plans on the horizon for year two…
Charter Itinerary’s founders, Boris De Bel and Candice Christiansen, may come from different ends of the yachting industry but they shared the same frustrations when it came to creating itineraries; stuck wrestling with inflexible and stubborn technology like pdf documents and Powerpoint presentations – a laborious and extremely time-consuming exercise. “I just couldn’t create the itineraries I wanted – there was nothing available and even if it looked good, it was still a static document. It was a very frustrating process, spending days creating itineraries or spending a lot of money outsourcing this to design companies” says Candice. Moving from a once very manual process, Charter Itinerary has solved this by automating and streamlining a task that would normally take hours or even days, into something that takes only a few minutes.
“Charter Itinerary is fast becoming indispensable to the charter team at Northrop & Johnson. It allows us to create attractive, informative presentations in minutes, saving us time and reinforcing the highly-customized service we offer our clients.”
Fiona Maureso
Senior Charter Broker Northrop & Johnson
For Charter Itinerary, the destination(s) of the charter is arguably more fundamental than anything else. The build up to a charter holiday is part of the joy and the interactive nature of the platform aids this sense of anticipation – after all, each destination has its own unique charm and selling points. It’s always better to show clients what they can experience, not just the yacht itself, but also where they’re going – activities, restaurants, tourist attractions and there are over one million Points of Interest to offer. As such it’s certainly a tool to entice clients with and nudge them to book. Boris explains “There are two elements to a charter, there’s the yacht and the destination. Usually the thought process isn’t ‘let’s charter a yacht’, it’s ‘we want to go on holiday to Greece, shall we do it on a yacht?”. To cater for this, Charter Itinerary covers destinations worldwide, boasting a catalogue of thousands of locations with high resolution images and descriptions included. Interactive maps of the itinerary route are automatically generated as well as optional, automated weather information, the possibility to add crew profiles, and of course, if there are changes to the charter and the itinerary needs to be edited, this is easily done with just a few clicks.
Not only do customers have the option to send the itineraries by URL link or QR code, but as an optional extra they can have their own fully branded, or broker-friendly custom template created by the Charter Itinerary team, and for those who still like it old-school, with a pdf printable option to show to their charter clients.
Year two will be a particularly exciting year for the company as they release the Light Plan, which simplifies even further the itinerary creation process by providing suggested itinerary routes along with the platform’s own images and descriptions automatically populating the itinerary. A deliberately quick and simple process for users wanting to generate high quantities of generic itineraries to their potential clients.
Another exciting feature being developed, due to popular demand, is the Proposal Module, which will allow brokers to create a selection of yachts, in an interactive brochure format, to send to their clients to entice them further to book that charter.
“We are a close knit and enthusiastic team who bounce ideas off each other and listen to our customers suggestions to ensure the platform is providing what is needed and constantly evolving. So watch this space, there is a lot more to come!” says Candice.
Charter Itinerary
Boris de Bel
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