Zizoo has evolved in the past year from being a platform to open up boat rental holidays to a wider audience to also offering a service for fleet managers.
The company, (Startup pitch here), has set out to be the go to online service for boating holidays tackling challenges such as durations, rigid cancellation policies and lack of reviews as it goes.
Successes so far, according to founders Sinan Masovic and Anna Banicevic, include 6,000 boats to choose from, $3 million in bookings and, they claim, revenue growing 40% month on month.
Zizoo has inventory in about 25 markets now, predominantly Europe and a partnership has been established with SunExpress - a joint venture between Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines.
Similar partnership with online travel agents is one way it hopes to reach its ambition of $550 million in bookings in 2019 and 100,000 boats.
Tnooz put a few questions to the founders:
How big can the market be?
"There's limited research but Future Market Insights shows the market was worth $35 billion last year. The charter companies are claiming 6.5% rental fees growth year-on-year.
Most of the growth is coming from the Eastern Mediterranean where boat rentals are becoming a holiday."
How hard is it to raise awareness of it as a travel vertical?
"There are a couple of ways - through PR, white-labelling and partnerships. The more people are aware, the more they will have the idea to try it. Most don't have any idea how simple it is. Every partnership gives us the opportunity to create awareness, it's a step up the ladder in educating the market."
Isn't it a once a year thing?
"For most people, especially people new to it, it's a once a year thing but it is quite a large basket value around Euros 3,000. One-day and two-day rentals are having a much greater recurring percentage so there is opportunity there.
Also, if we look at the US and Caribbean - in the Caribbean for 70% of the year you can rent a boat, in the US there are also lakes whereas in Europe it is sailing holiday destinations.
"It is becoming more popular and we are the only ones offering the supply side as well so we can offer it to everyone. We can also see a lot of growth in people wanting to try boating for the first time."
Some figures shared by Zizoo at the recent Phocuswright conference reveal that 60% of people booking have never been on a boating holiday before and 81% of requests are not for Saturday to Saturday rentals and therefore not being catered for currently.
In addition, Zizoo's own data shows consumers will pay up to 35% higher rental rates for greater flexibility in terms of cancellation policies higher for shorter rental periods.