ICOMIA Marinas Group (IMG) Policy Sub-Committee Meets For First Time

The International Council of Marine Industry Associations (ICOMIA) has been addressing challenges facing the global marine industry since 1967, with working committees such as The ICOMIA Marinas Group (IMG) as the main vehicle for work and interaction with its members.

IMG’s mission is “to promote and facilitate internationally the sharing and exchange of information in respect to the development and best practice management of marinas, boat storage facilities, boating access and associated infrastructure throughout the world”.

The group recently widened its membership base to include not only its traditional marinas association members, but also multiple marina operating companies; marina and shore side builders, developers, designers and individual marinas where there is no national marina association. IMG recently held the ICOMIA World Marinas Conference in Singapore.

Under the direction of the group, the ICOMIA Marinas Group Policy Sub-Committee has been formed; its objectives are to produce tools and strategy in order to support the overall goals of IMG.

Meeting for the first time on 24th January 2012 in Dusseldorf, the IMG Policy Sub-Committee clarified their terms of reference, and discussed the need for common Marina focused statistics. The meeting included presentations and reports on new and upcoming legislation and International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and possible technical issues for development as ISO Standards for Marinas.

The Sub-Committee discussed the benefits of developing a statistical trend report showing thenumber of Marinas and berths available in geographical regions, rather than country by country, to show patterns of growth in recognised boating areas such as the Mediterranean or the Caribbean.

In response to a lack of common definitions and measures for the economic impact Marinas can bring to an area, the Sub-Committee agreed that it would be invaluable to have a common framework which could be used to measure a Marina’s financial benefit.

As part of the Sub-Committee’s remit to support and develop IMG projects such as ICOMIA’s Clean Marinas Programme, (which is intended to encourage the development of national or regional clean marinas programmes), Albert Willemsen, ICOMIA’s Environmental Manager and member of the IMG Policy Sub-Committee, presented an update on new and forthcoming legislation which could impact Marinas. Mr Willemsen reported that he would produce a factsheet on Global Environmental Impacts for the IMG group and ICOMIA members.

Sarah Dhanda, Director of Business Development of the British Marine Federation and Chairwoman of the IMG Policy Sub-Committee stated, “I am delighted to be chairing the ICOMIA Marinas Group Policy Sub-Committee to help move forward the work of the IMG; the group will be very active in agreeing and producing tools and policy to support the outreach and development programme of the IMG.”