Ponta Delgada Marina will have six houseboats
by the end of March
Correio dos Açores reports that almost a year after arriving at Marina de Ponta Delgada with its first houseboat and having spoken to the newspaper, the Homeboat Company business, a company founded in 2017 and headquartered in Lisbon, is going from strength to strength ‘. Contacted by Correio dos Açores, the founder and CEO of Homeboat Company, Rodrigo Rubin, made a positive assessment of the activity.
“We are very happy, customers love the experience and our ratings are 5 stars”, emphasizes Rodrigo Rubin. The CEO of this company, which in Portugal also has houseboats in Albufeira or Lisbon, later reveals that in Ponta Delgada there are already 4 houses of this type. The aim is, by the end of March, to transport two more to the port of Ponta Delgada.
All these houseboats are T1 type, measuring 8 by 3 meters and have, in addition to a bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom inside. Outside, they have a terrace on top and two balconies; one at the front and one at the back. In addition, Rodrigo Rubin also explained that these “houses come with an engine and can sail without any problems”. Despite this peculiarity, the CEO of this company admits that “in a place with the atmospheric conditions of the Azores, these structures are more to be moored. But in other places, it has this double function”.
Tourists are, naturally, the main customers in renting the houseboats. Rodrigo Rubin specifies that around 40% of these are Portuguese, with the rest coming from countries such as the United States of America, Germany, France, the Netherlands or Switzerland. “They’re a little bit from everywhere,” he says.
The founder of the Homeboat Company says later that he had a short meeting with the Regional Directorate of Tourism and that the intention now is to ‘dock’ more of these boats in other marinas in the Azores.
“In Vila Franca do Campo, Faial or Terceira (…) We aim to invest and to be able to provide a new experience. We are convinced that the region is an incredible place with a lot to offer. I think this formula will go very well and we are confident that this investment will work”, he emphasizes.
Having started with just one part-time worker, the Homeboat Company currently has three people hired in Ponta Delgada. In another aspect, Rodrigo Rubin highlights “the sustainable nature” of this type of tourism and also the fact that a houseboat is “something completely different” from the usual. One year after entering the market, it seems indisputable that boat houses are here to stay.
