Tourism and Experience Business
Fun and safe boating
– aiming at an international premium product
Nautics Ltd has decided to combine top Finnish expertise in navigation and technology in the world’s first intelligent route planning service for boaters.
In the first few weeks after the launch of Nautics’ Sailmate in June 2010, 750 boaters registered with the service, and by the end of August, it had already attracted 1,200.
The route planning service by Nautics enables boaters to plan their route according to their preferences, for instance to find the best fish restaurants, golf courses or accommodation in the archipelago. The online service combines preferred locations and port data with nautical charts, weather data, service providers and the routing software. Routes can also be shared with friends both before and after the trip.
‘Safety is the key factor in this service: when you know the boater’s route in advance, those back home will be able to know at which port or location they might contact the person in question. Our aim is for boaters to save their routes in our service to make the data available to others, including sea rescue services, if necessary’, says Evita Malm, Nautics’ deputy CEO.
Another safety-enhancing feature of Sailmate is that it takes account of the boat’s characteristics in route planning, and warns the sailor of any dangers outside navigable routes.
Nautics Ltd was founded in October 2009 by seafaring and marine industry software professionals. Its mission is to make professional high technology marine solutions available for boaters and to offer the world’s most easy-to-use service for route planning.
Mudbaths or fresh fish?
As Nautics charted boaters’ needs and wishes during the summer of 2009, information on service providers in the archipelago was most in demand.
The Centre of Expertise Programme’s Tourism and Experience Management Cluster is familiar with this problem: our fabulous archipelago offers a wide variety of tourist destinations completely unknown to travellers. There is still plenty of room for development in networking in order to enable travellers to find even the smallest local service providers.
The Helsinki Region and South-West Finland Centres of Expertise helped Nautics get in touch with tourism organisations and financiers. Experts at the Tourism and Experience Management Cluster were convinced by the networked nature of the service and the new possibilities offered by the Internet, as an increasing number of trips are planned and reservations made online. The sharing of experiences through online social media is also increasing rapidly.
Through Sailmate, service providers can get their contact information on nautical charts for free, and more detailed descriptions for an annual fee. You can also create a link from your homepage to the nautical chart. The basic idea is for service providers to update their information themselves. In August 2010, the number of boating destinations totalled some 1,300.
The thematic routes in the Kirkkonummi and Turku archipelago, planned with Culminatum and Turku Touring, were completed for the summer of 2010. In Kirkkonummi, themes include hobbies and spa treatments, while gourmet enthusiasts can select their destinations on the Kasnäs-Utö route, which takes one week to navigate. The service also includes information on ports.
Aiming at a top international product
The number of long-distance boaters totals some 70,000 in Finland; these and the many more on day trips can benefit from the Sailmate service. More than fifty per cent of Finnish boaters carry a portable computer, required for using Sailmate, while at sea.
At Nautics Ltd, programming took one year to develop, after which information on ports and yacht clubs was entered on the charts. At present, other service providers are being contacted while the route service is developed further. Future features include GPS positioning, which will enable the tracking of boats, subject to their owners’ permission.
‘Our next aim is to expand the service to include Swedish and Estonian waters. Russian and German tourists, many of whom sail the Finnish coastal waters in their own boats, form a major new target group. The service also lowers the threshold to rent a boat in unknown waters,’ says Evita Malm.
Nautics has the ambitious goal of making its product a global brand. As far as is known, there is no similar product on the market anywhere else.
The development of Sailmate has been supported by Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, the Foundation for Finnish Inventions, Veturi Growth Partners and Tourism and Experience Management Centres of Expertise Culminatum Innovation, Turku Science Park and Turku Touring. The weather service is implemented in cooperation with Sailport AB of Sweden, and for nautical charts, Nautics has an agreement with the Finnish Transport Agency.
The Sailmate service will cost EUR 70 per year for users, and the charge for tourist companies will be EUR 90 to 150, depending on the content of the service package. Sailmate is available at www.sailmate.fi, and there is specialist information available for tourist companies at http://yritykset.sailmate.fi.
