Market Forces Win Out at Banderas Bay

After a winter of what cruisers took to be unreasonably high slip rates at the new Marina Riviera Nayarit in La Cruz, a paucity of tenants, plus the input of marina manager Christian Mancebo, have combined to convince the board of directors to reduce slip fees.

According to Mancebo, the summer rate will be 35 cents a foot per day for stays of one month or more. Check our math, but we think that works out to $420 a month for a 40 footer. Shorter stays will be 50 cents/foot per day. This is a gigantic reduction in slip fees, but we wonder if it’s not going to be a case of ‘too late’ for this summer, as most all of the boats are either in their summer homes or have otherwise moved on.
 
The folks at Marina Nayarit Marina don’t need our advice, of course, but we’re going to give it to them anyway. Don’t make the same mistake with rates for next winter. Price the slips competitively so you’ll get lots of takers. Once the marina has plenty of tenants, then you can start to slowly raise prices if you like. That’s how Marina Costa Baja in La Paz managed to go from an empty marina to a packed house in just a matter of two years. Well, that and excellent service and staffing.
 
Market forces are good for the consumer and over the long term, the seller, too. Now, if we could only convince Singlar of the logic, maybe they’d reduce prices and fill their marinas, too.