APRIL 8TH, 2010
By CONTRIBUTING BLOGGER
By CONTRIBUTING BLOGGER
Spring launch arrives in northern U.S.
By Christopher Kourtakis, director of sales and marketing, 360° Industry Solutions — The time has come. It is finally here. It has been a long hard winter for the East Coast and the Midwest. Our customers have been waiting for this time for months. Many of the industry’s customers will be at the marinas and visiting ship stores over the next several weeks as spring launch is finally here for the northern half of the United States. Read more >>
Tags: Growth
I was driving in the car yesterday when 
By Peter Granata, President, Granata Design and the Marine Design Resource Alliance — There’s a new bandwagon pulling into town, and if you’re too busy ducking bullets you may not notice it. If you hang around the boating industry long enough, you’re bound to experience a cyclical downturn. This most recent version has to be the worst since 1980, and many agree that this one is the worst, period. Nonetheless, the point is that it is cyclical. The industry will come back, although it’s probably going to look different than it was. 
I’ve never been to Seattle, but it’s pretty high up on my list of places to visit. My favorite cities are those where you can be in the thick of what makes them so appealing – the museums, restaurants, shops and marketplaces – and you can look up and see the evidence of the natural world, the water and the mountains, just beyond. But even more attractive is the city’s large and progressive boating business community. Just look at the Northwest Marine Trade Association’s (NMTA) Grow Boating Initiative and particularly its most recent promotion, unveiled yesterday. 