Portrait

1.What made you create the Hainan Rendez-vous three years ago?

I started almost 10 years ago helping to develop a  boat show in Shanghai and develop it from 20 to over 400 exhibitors including most of the leading Foreign yacht manufacturers. I could feel that the visitors who came to this show were searching for something – a new lifestyle or adventure – but they would often leave the show looking disappointed, as if they hadn't found the excitement they had hoped to find. The reason seemed clear to me: at that time, the technical side of yachting was too much emphasized, and it was hard to bring together the adventure and beauty of the yachting lifestyle that I knew from Europe. That's the reason why I came on Hainan Island which was at that time launching the concept of the Sanya International Tourism destination.
When decided to create my own event in 2009,I wanted to develop a concept that would not only bring great boats in the water but also the excitement, glamour and pleasure of the yacht owner's life and yachting culture. In order to share the boating way of life on a 360 degrees experience, it was as well important to add other elements connected such as a private aviation exhibition, luxury properties showcase, upmarket brands and fine art displays all reflect different aspects of this “ultra-lifestyle” ideal. 


2.Why the event Hainan Rendez-vous can grow up so quickly in the past three years?

Well, I had made a lot of good friends among the foreign ship builders and other overseas yachting industry organisations during my years working in the boating industry in Shanghai. I spent a lot of time listening to them and discussing the question of how to show people what yachting is really all about. When I introduced them the idea of the Hainan Rendez-Vous, I already knew how to gain their trust – I was able to 'speak their language', you might say and they trusted that I could do something different and never seen here.
With regards to the fast growth of the show in the past three years I think is just an example of the snowball effect. Word spread through the industry that several large vessels were sold at our first show, and shipyards that didn't have a presence last year didn't want to miss out again this year. The same thing I think happened with last year's visitors, they went home and told their friends about the show, getting more and more exciting year after year.The very challenging part is to make it every year more and more surprising and exciting for the guests and we just have to keep the level of the event higher and higher in terms of quality every year and because I'm very pragmatic, I know that if we don't improve, the show can decline as fast as its grew.
Finally, holding Hainan Rendez-Vous in Sanya adds uniqueness and excitement to the event, because the city itself is so special. Sanya is developing so rapidly and the atmosphere here is imbued with a feeling of possibility and energy. More than 5 marinas have opened recently and Sanya aimed to be China's yachting hub. I'm glad to see the Hainan Rendez Vous contributing to the development of such.  We have met Mr Wang in 2009 when he was building the first marina on the island, a great idea and a great vision since he foreseen the development of yachting in its island and we promise at that time to bring him all the world's best brands in his marina. While we came with a whole concept, show trade name, our expertise in the boating industry in China for years and all our connections internationally and in China, Mister Wang helped us with marina and with the administration part especially with the relation with the government and the customs. that's how all the adventure started.


3.With yacht prices that have fallen significantly in the past four years and a wider choice,luxury yachting was already clearly a buyer’s market. Have you arranged some activities or parties for VIP this year?

This make yachts probably more and more accessible. With regards to the parties, cocktails or any networking opportunities, they are created to show that yacht owners from where ever in the world belong to a strong community from Monaco, to Cannes, to Dubai, or to Miami.  Yachting is not only important to get closer to your good friends and family but a good way as well to spend a few days of quality time with a potential business partner. There's no hazard that most of the top worldwide CEO's own a yacht. That's why the Hainan Rendez Vous is developing such a great networking platform to entertain its visitors. It is definitely in the essence of yachting. Enjoying life on the sea with good friends, partners or friends to be.


4.What’s the main difference between Hainan Rendez-vous and other boat show in china?

Firstly, as it happen all over the world and for every market there is only space for 1 leading boat show per region. In Europe Monaco is the reference, Miami for the US, Dubai for the Middle East and Hainan for Asia.
I think the most important thing that makes Hainan Rendez-Vous the leading show in Asia and a truly unique event is that it is so much more than a boat show. We have one of the region's largest private aviation exhibits – which, by the way, is allowing us to fly almost 280 of our VIP guests to and from the event on our partners business jets this year. Exhibits of luxury properties, brands, fine art, dining, entertainment and all kinds of fun activities are also part of the Hainan Rendez-Vous experience. This great range of offerings draws a broad cross section of upscale society to our event, and the diversity of people makes the show more interesting and multiplies the opportunities for exhibitors to make sales and meet new contacts.


5.Will you increase the size of the event Hainan Rendez-vous? How many yachts and yacht exhibitors will on show this year?

Often quality worth more than quantity and of course we will grow but the most important is to create year after year a unique platform with astonishing yachts, jets and lifestyle brands.
Due to a lack of space, we unfortunately can not grow to much but have tried to maximize the space that we had. In terms of yachts, the units will be larger so the number of yachts will be more or less similar but with amazing units coming from everywhere in the world!


6.What are the future development plans?

More fun and more excitement! How we'll do that is our company's secret recipee! See you this year and next year again! Our company is developing other excited events in other very exclusive industries and we'll give more info very soon!


7.Do you have any new plans to  attract more high quality VVIP? 

Yes, we have a great dedicated team traveling in different cities of the country to communicate on the whole event. Hainan Rendez Vous is as well a platform on which our exhibitors and partners are happy to invite their best clients to offer an experience, it could start by a demo flight, a sea trial, fashion private viewings, the most refine alcohol tasting (including Cognac, Champagne and wine, especially with the Yaomin Wine launched last year by Pernod Ricard), etc. It is a great place to enhance the relationship with its best customers and I'm glad to see that they trust we are doing a good job since more and more guests  are invited to the show. And we trust that Bluinc Media will bring as well its most enthusiastic readers to the show too!


8. How to improve the quality of Hainan Rendez-vous this year?

For a yearly success of the event, we have to be able to offer year after year more experience and new creative ideas to make sure that our visitors are discovering new things at each edition. For instance, we have every year more and more high-end brands unknown yet on the Chinese market making their start here at the show. The quality is improved as well thanks a huge job in the hospitality and networking activities. For instance, we are welcoming A golf Tournament in  association of the St Andrews Golf Festival that will be held during the show. ARTin Hainan will be developed by The Art Labor (an Art Gallery located inShanghai and they will create a Garden of Art), new seminars will be created as well dedicated to Art by Madga Danysz. Amazing yachts and jets will be present too. A new exciting edition to come as you see!