algud bud, always like positive critics.

 

That price is for the boat only mate, not including accomdation and food.

 

I just tried to do a package deal so that it would be a lot easier than making individual bookings.

 

Cheers

 

kevin

HCG - in any service business it is important to understand the difference between your 'fixed' and 'variable' costs. Fixed costs are the bills you have to pay (interest, marketing, insurance etc) whether you take the boat out on a charter or not. These are the killers if you have a downturn in bookings, get sick, have a boat failure that takes time to fix, etc, etc. Variable costs are the costs like fuel, crew etc that you only pay when the boat goes out. These are the costs that get bigger or smaller based on the amount of charters you actually do. The difference between the charter price you charge and the variable costs is known as your 'gross margin, and this is what many people think of as the charter operators 'profit'. The reality is that in most of these businesses the fixed cost are as big or bigger than the variable costs and what you think of as 'profit' barely covers the fixed costs that you didn't think about.

Engine 'wear' is mostly a variable cost as they have a limited life expectancy that you chew a piece out of every time you use the boat. In very simple terms, that is why you need to count the cost of your engine hours in the way that I did.