Burgess Says Experience-Led Travel Is Shaping Superyacht Charter Requests

The charter brief increasingly starts with an experience

Burgess says some superyacht clients are placing greater emphasis on what they can do during a voyage, alongside their requirements for the yacht itself. In an insight published on 16 September 2026, the brokerage described demand for personalised trips involving wildlife, cultural activities, family time and remote destinations.

This is the brokerage’s assessment of the requests it receives, not an independently sampled survey of all charterers. The company did not release a fresh numerical measure of the share of bookings driven by experiences in the September article, so a quantified industry-wide shift cannot be inferred from it.

From an itinerary to a personal brief

The company describes enquiries that begin with an ambition, such as seeing wildlife in the Galápagos, rather than a fixed sequence of ports. A yacht can then serve as a mobile base while a charter broker combines the vessel, local specialists and logistics into an itinerary.

Burgess charter broker Catherine Wilson reports greater requests for add-on activities, including guided hikes, fishing excursions and private cultural tours. These are examples from the brokerage’s work rather than promises that every yacht or destination can provide each experience.

Specialist partners and remote destinations

Burgess points to its partnership with travel specialist JORO for trips that may involve activities beyond those normally arranged by a yacht crew. Examples in the company’s September feature include Croatian food experiences, Sardinian hikes and diving in Indonesia.

The brokerage also describes Antarctic and Norwegian itineraries that required advance planning and specialised local knowledge. Remote travel is subject to weather, access permissions, safety arrangements and the chosen yacht’s capability, factors that cannot be replaced by a promotional itinerary alone.

Questions for charter clients and operators

Clients considering an experience-led charter should identify the activities that matter most before choosing a yacht, then discuss available tenders, crew skills, local providers and seasonal conditions. The final charter price and any additional services need to be checked against the actual contract and advance provisioning allowance rather than assumed to be included.

For owners and managers, the account illustrates why detailed preference sheets and coordination with shore-based specialists can be important when building a bespoke trip. It complements, but does not replace, recorded booking statistics or evidence about changes in the wider charter market.