Burgess winter book runs 150pc ahead as the Med summer stays soft
A record book, and a winter running 150 per cent ahead
Burgess published its charter demand review on 24 July. The brokerage booked 5,970 charter days in 2025 against 4,432 in 2024, a rise of 35 per cent across its own managed fleet. The same report says bookings for winter 2026/27 are running 150 per cent ahead of where that season stood at this point in 2025. It is the strongest forward figure any of the large charter houses has put in public this year.
The two numbers measure different things and should be read separately. The charter-day count is settled history, a completed 2025 that turned out to be the largest book Burgess has recorded. The winter figure is a forward order book for a season that has barely opened for sale, and forward books can soften. What makes it worth an owner's attention is the direction, because a winter that is selling early is the opposite of the summer everyone has been describing.
The summer softened, the winter did not
Nothing in the Burgess report contradicts the weak Mediterranean season its own brokers have been describing since June. Jonathan Beckett, the Burgess chief executive, has put this Mediterranean summer as much as 30 per cent behind last year. Northrop and Johnson's data team measured the average booking lead time falling from 118 days in 2025 to 83 days in 2026, close to a third of the planning runway gone. Burgess says its spring was slowed by geopolitical caution before demand recovered, with summer bookings still ahead of last year.
What that describes is a market that has shifted its weight rather than lost it. The Mediterranean high season is crowded, expensive and now openly discounted, and clients are committing inside 90 days. The Caribbean winter is being booked early and in volume. An owner who reads only the summer headline will conclude the charter market is contracting and will price his winter weeks accordingly, which is the costly misreading available this year.
Where the growth sits, by size
The size brackets decide whether any of this applies to a particular boat. Burgess reports bookings up 26 per cent in the 40 to 50 metre segment and 23 per cent in the 50 to 60 metre segment, the two brackets carrying most of the commercially operated fleet. The average yacht chartered through the house measured 51.9 metres. The average charter ran 8.2 days.
That average length sets the operational shape of a profitable programme. Turnarounds come roughly every eight days, provisioning is continuous, and a crew works a compressed cycle from June to September. A yacht laid out for one family at anchor for a fortnight will earn less per available week than one configured for back-to-back eight-day trips, whatever the two ask per week. Owners weighing a build or a refit against charter income should design to the 8.2-day number, not the brochure fortnight.
Fifty-eight per cent of the book came back
Burgess reports that 58 per cent of its 2025 bookings came from returning clients. That figure turns charter from an acquisition business into a retention business, and it changes where an owner's money is best spent. Winning a first charter is expensive and largely the central agent's problem. Winning the second is close to free, and it depends on things the owner controls: crew continuity, a tender and toy package that matches what the guests actually asked for, and a yacht that is where it promised to be on the day.
The destination order in the report is the western Mediterranean first, the Caribbean second, the eastern Mediterranean third, the Adriatic fourth and the Bahamas fifth. Craig Cohen, a charter broker at the house, singles out Greece within that third place, pointing to a fleet that now holds enough large yachts to give a client real choice. An eastern Mediterranean season is a different proposition from Antibes to Porto Cervo, with longer legs, thinner shoreside support and a client who has usually chartered before.
What an owner does with this
The decision in front of most charter owners this month is whether to send the boat west for the winter. A transatlantic crossing has to be committed well before the winter book closes, and the Burgess forward number argues for committing rather than waiting to see how the autumn Mediterranean fills. The alternative is a yacht sitting in a Mediterranean berth through a season with no charter market in it, meeting crew and dockage out of capital.
The second decision is rate discipline, and the two seasons pull in opposite directions. Discounting a soft Mediterranean September protects utilisation at the cost of setting a reference price every comparable boat on the coast then has to meet. A winter book running 150 per cent ahead does not need that concession, and an owner who carries a summer discount across the Atlantic gives away margin the market was not asking him for. Price the two seasons as the separate markets the data says they have become.
What owners and crew report
Greece is pulling bookings off the established West Med circuit
The house reports clients moving east within the Mediterranean rather than out of it, which is a different picture from an outright demand fall.
Craig Cohen, charter broker, Burgess (July 2026)No independent series exists to check a broker's book against
Charter-day totals are published by houses about themselves. No association, registry or data provider publishes an audited fleet-wide figure, so every number in this story rests on the party that benefits from it.
Yotters desk
What is good, and what to watch
Strong points
- A winter book is a commitment, not a moodWinter bookings are taken months ahead and carry deposits and cancellation terms. A 150 per cent gain is contracts signed, which is a firmer signal than a summer enquiry count.
- The growth is in the sizes owners actually ownUp 26 per cent at 40 to 50 metres and 23 per cent at 50 to 60 metres. That is the bracket most private owners chartering out sit in, not the 90-metre tail.
- Fifty-eight per cent repeat is the useful numberReturning clients cost nothing to win, book earlier and are more tolerant of a rate. A book with that much repeat in it is more durable than one built on first-time enquiries.
- It gives a positioning decision a dateAn owner deciding whether to send the boat west for the winter has to commit in the autumn. A winter book already 150 per cent ahead is the closest thing to evidence available at the moment the decision has to be made.
What to watch
- One house's book is not the marketBurgess is large but it is one broker reporting its own bookings. There is no independent charter-day series for the fleet, so the figure cannot be placed against a market total.
- Days are not rateThe release gives volume and withholds price. A record 5,970 days at a softer weekly rate and heavier discounting would look identical in this data.
- The summer and winter numbers point opposite waysThe same brokers describe a Mediterranean summer 20 to 30 per cent short while the winter runs ahead. Both can be true, but a reader is being handed one house's winter against the market's summer.
- Repositioning is a real cost before any of it is earnedSending a 50-metre yacht to the Caribbean and back is fuel, crew, insurance and yard time. A winter book that is ahead in percentage terms still has to cover an Atlantic crossing each way.
- A concentrated West Med book cuts both waysTwo thirds of summer bookings in one region is efficient while it holds and exposed when that region is the one going soft.
Practical detail
| Charter days booked, 2025 | 5,970, against 4,432 in 2024 - a rise of 35 per cent year on year, on Burgess figures published July 2026. |
|---|---|
| Winter 2026/27 position | 150 per cent ahead of the same point a year earlier. The measure is bookings taken, not days sailed, so it is money committed rather than interest expressed. |
| Repeat business | 58 per cent of the 2025 book came from clients who had chartered through the house before. |
| Average charter | 8.2 days, on an average chartered yacht of 51.9 metres. |
| Where the growth sits by size | Bookings in the 40 to 50 metre bracket up 26 per cent, 50 to 60 metres up 23 per cent. |
| Most booked regions, 2025 | West Mediterranean first, then the Caribbean, the East Mediterranean, the Adriatic and the Bahamas. |
| Concentration this summer | Two thirds of all 2026 charters booked so far are in the West Mediterranean, which is where the reported softness also sits. |
| What it costs to be in the book | A central agency listing carries the standard charter commission plus the owner's own marketing, crew uniform and provisioning standards. Burgess publishes no rate card and no commission schedule. |
| What is NOT published | Days and percentages only. No gross charter revenue, no average weekly rate, no discounting. A record day count is fully compatible with weaker rates, and nothing in the release lets a reader tell. |
| Where these numbers come from | Burgess's own charter division, self-reported and unaudited. No independent body publishes charter-day totals house by house, so there is nothing to check them against. |
Questions this story answers
What happened?
Burgess booked 5,970 charter days in 2025 against 4,432 the year before, and says its winter 2026/27 bookings are already 150 per cent ahead of the same point last year. That sits directly against the Mediterranean summer the same brokers call 20 to 30 per cent short. For an owner running a charter programme, the winter number is the one that carries a decision, because positioning has to be committed months before the revenue lands.
What is good about it?
A winter book is a commitment, not a mood. Winter bookings are taken months ahead and carry deposits and cancellation terms. A 150 per cent gain is contracts signed, which is a firmer signal than a summer enquiry count.
What should an owner or buyer watch?
One house's book is not the market. Burgess is large but it is one broker reporting its own bookings. There is no independent charter-day series for the fleet, so the figure cannot be placed against a market total.
What do owners and crew report?
The house reports clients moving east within the Mediterranean rather than out of it, which is a different picture from an outright demand fall. (Craig Cohen, charter broker, Burgess (July 2026))
Who reported this?
Burgess, Northrop and Johnson, CNBC.
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