SuperyachtNews speaks with Adam Ramlugon about issues relating to the perception of the superyacht market.

Perception is a perennial issue for today’s market, whereas once superyachts were viewed with aspiration and awe, in modern society they have become the standard bearers for corruption, tax evasion, inequality of wealth and pantomime villains. It can be a hard pill to swallow for those in the industry who know that this represents a fraction of the market as a whole, but if the taste is too bitter, a bottle of 2017 Château Grand Boise Red certainly goes some distance towards taking the edge off.

“When considering the issue of perception, it is important to consider how opinions are formed today,” begins Ramlugon. “We rarely refer to one particular media source, there are many and most of the ones we see are controlled by algorithms that feeds us opinions we are likely to agree with, so it is easy for our own preconceptions and prejudices to go unchallenged. However, almost regardless of where you get your information today, there seems to be a groundswell for supporting a more restrained way of experiencing wealth, one with far less support for largess and conspicuous consumption.”

The groundswell that Ramlugon refers to has much to do with how individuals reflect on their own success and their future prospects. “If you feel like you are doing well and that you have solid prospects, then you tend to not really care if someone else is doing better than you” he explains. “However, various sources highlight that real wages have, for the most part, been stagnant for a number of years while the chasm between the ultra-wealthy and the ‘everyone else’ has seemingly widened. As an industry, we must be mindful of this.”

Read the full article in SuperyachtNews here.