Overview of the Australian Marina Sector

Courtesy of the MIAA and Waterline magazine

The objectives of this 2009/10 study were to quantify the scale and basic characteristics of Australian marinas. Marinas have been defined in this report as recreational marinas including club and commercial marinas with 20 or more on-water boat storage spaces.

There are an estimated 356 such marinas in Australia. In terms of distribution of marinas New South Wales accounts for 154 or 44 % of all the marinas in Australia, followed by Queensland with 19% and Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia all around 10%.

The total number of marina boat storage spaces including dry-land boat storage is 39,300. This represents about 5% of the estimated 800,000 registered recreational boats in Australia1. The average marina boat storage capacity is 110 boats. Just over half of all marinas (53%) have storage for between 20 and 100 boats indicating that the average marina in Australia has a relatively small boat carrying capacity.

While New South Wales has most marinas Queensland has the most marina boat storage spaces or abouty 30% of national marina capacity; followed by New South Wales with 28% and Western Australia with 16%. On-water boat storage spaces account of approximately 88% of all marina storage. Marina berths (or pens) account for just over 90% of all on-water boat storage with the balance being marina moorings. On land approximately three quarters of all marina storage is on boat trailers or similar while more sophisticated dry stack or rack and stack systems are relatively uncommon.

While the data relating to type2 of marinas was less reliable it is estimated  ‘traditional commercial marinas’ that carry out a range of services account for roughly half of all marinas in Australia. Club and ‘service and repair marinas are the next most common types of marina.

Number of Marinas Nationally and by State
The study identified there are 356 marinas in Australia. The study indicates the percentage breakdown in terms of location (see Figure 1). 154 marinas are located in NSW which represents 43.8% of marinas in Australia. Queensland has 67 or 18.8%, Victoria 40 or 11.2%,    Western Australia 36 or 10.1%, South Australia 32 or 8.9%, Tasmania 18 or 5.1%, the Northern Territory 7 or 1.9% and Australian Capital Territory 2 or .6%. (Figure 1).
 
Size of Marina Boat Storage Capacity in Australia
Data was collected in the study on marinas boat storage capacity including both on-water and dry land storage. This covered floating and fixed marina berths/pens, fixed and swing moorings, dry stack and dry land boat storage attributed to marinas. It can be seen in Table 1 (see over) that the total number of boat storage spaces at Australian marinas is estimated to be 39,300. The average boat storage space per marina is therefore estimated to be 110.
 
Size of Marinas in Australia by Boat Storage Capacity
Figure 2 below indicates that the most common boat storage capacity in Australia is in the 50 – 100 boats range representing 29% of all marina boat storage. 24% of all marina boat storage is in the less than 50 boats range. 24% of marina capacity is within the 100 – 150 band and only 14% of marina boat storage is in the 200 plus range. 6% of marina boat storage is at marinas with capacity greater than 300 marina boat spaces.

Marina Boat Storage Capacity Nationally and by State
While Queensland has less than half the number of marinas than New South Wales the Queensland marinas are on average more than double the size in terms of boat carrying capacity. Although New South Wales has the greatest number of marinas (43.8%) when one analyses the boat storage or carrying capacity of marinas the picture changes significantly.

As illustrated above Queensland has the largest number of marina storage spaces at 11,642. This represents 29.6% of all on-water marina boat spaces in Australia. New South Wales marinas have an on-water boat storage capacity of 11,004 or 28% of national capacity. Western Australia follows with 6,259 or 15.9% of national capacity; then Victoria with 4,753 or 12.1%, South Australia with 3,530 or 9%, Tasmania with 1,227 or 3.1%, Northern Territory 755 or 1.9% and the Australian Capital Territory 130 or 0.3%.

The explanation for Queensland’s fewer but larger marinas than New South Wales may be attributable to a range of factors including Queensland’s later development of recreational boating marinas including those on relatively large ‘green field’ sites.

Segmentation of On-Water and Dry-Land Marina Boat Storage
Analysis indicates that marina on-water storage (wet berths and moorings) are the dominant form of boat storage associated with marinas. Figure 4 shows that 88.2% of the boat spaces are on-water whereas 11.8% are on land.

Analysis indicates that wet berth or pen storage is by far the most common type of on-water boat storage in Australian marinas as apposed to swing or fixed moorings. It is estimated that 92% of on-water boat storage at marinas are marina berth spaces and only 8% of spaces are on swing or fixed moorings.

The vast majority (72%) of dry-land boat storage spaces are boats stored on trailers or with simple supports; as opposed to more sophisticated rack and stack/dry stack systems. It is noted that industry expect significant growth in more sophisticated dry stack storage systems into the future as has been evidenced in the USA and parts of Europe.