Istion Yachting

Building a recognizable brand in the yachting industry

Ioannis Kourounis founded Istion Yachts in Kos in 1992. At the time, Dodecanese yachting underwent a promising transformation: the region's increase in sailing popularity coincided with the introduction of a novel customer-centric charter service backed up with a top-of-the-line sailing fleet. With just a handful of yachts back then, Istion started introducing the Dodecanese to a whole new generation of sailing enthusiasts in one of Greece's most attractive sailing destinations.

The company’s humble beginnings were quickly overshadowed by their massive success, as Istion became one of the most recognizable brands in the Yachting Industry. Istion's spectacular growth has always revolved around understanding customer needs and providing personalised charter services. Today their client focused approach hasn’t changed or will it change in the future.

Greece is one of world’s most popular sailing destinations. Mild southern Mediterranean climate with an extended summer gives an extended sailing season of close to eight months, with over 13,000 kilometres of coastline to explore. At Istion Yachting, they have been providing unforgettable sailing holidays in Greece for more than 30 years now and plan to draw on their success in Greece and spread it across the globe.

Operating on a mass scale with a boutique yachting experience

Istion Yachting nowadays counts a fleet of 270 yachts, with 220 sailing yachts, including 90 catamarans, making Istion Yachting the most extensive catamaran fleet on the Greek charter market. On top of a vast selection of yachts for sailing enthusiasts, Istion offers motor yachts, allowing them to cater their services to any customer profile. The plethora of Istion’s services includes bareboat, skippered and fully crewed holidays on the sea, embodying their motto - "Beautifull people, beautiful yachts". Istion standard for what the company is known for, allows them to offer boutique experiences on a massive scale. They approach each charter inquiry with a high attention to detail, providing every kind of extra service one could desire; from water toys to provisioning sourced by local producers to ensure a unique destination driven customer experience. Istion’s yachts are available for bookings from 11 bases in Greece, providing an abundance of sailing areas throughout Greek coastline and islands.

The future of Istion shines bright, with their focus of maintaining a recognizable level of service, Istion will undoubtedly spread their fleet across the globe. The first step in that direction has already been made with the most recent expansion to Croatia, forming their first base in Skradin with a growing fleet of 60 yachts. Istion's systematic approach to polish their service levels, maintain their fleet to the highest standards, and widening of the destination scope is reflected in their planning of future endeavours, which come from a strategic angle, and is based on evolving market needs. Keeping up with Istion in the upcoming seasons will be exciting to say the least.

"When we implemented the MMK solution, Booking Manager, time changed completely because we were able to produce an offer within seconds. For example, we needed three to five minutes to prepare an offer before using Booking Manager; multiply that with 12000 to 15000 requests per year, and you can do the math yourself."

Vassilis Kontos

Business Development Manager

Booking Manager implementation effects are highly measurable

Istion Yachting wanted to ensure their recognizable brand and the high-quality service, which they are well- known for, reaches every yacht charter agency. In that sense it was only natural to start cooperation with Booking Manager and start offering their fleet on the largest yacht charter B2B marketplace. Along with the massive market reach this cooperation brought them, the System’s smart functionalities made their back-office work - a breeze. Booking Manager's quick quotes proved to be a game changer for Istion Yachting which was at that point already sending out between 12000 to 15000 offers annually. The amount of time and human resources saved was immeasurable. Prior to using the System, each quote was created manually, each taking up between 3 to 5 minutes and leaving room for errors. Now it takes two-clicks to get the job done. Within only a few seconds the quote is already in the client's inbox. During that time MMK managed to facilitate an integration with Istion's internal System to minimize adaptation time and make their appearance on the largest B2B global marketplace be as fast and smooth as possible. 

Once Istion made the decision to expand to the Croatian market, Booking Manager helped with the software set-up for their newest base located in Skradin. In their Croatian subsidiary the Booking Manager Solution is implemented in full and used to check the validity of the VAT numbers before issuing charter invoices from the System and generate a wide variety of business reports. This allowed them to automate the back-office process, save time and maximize efficiency.  Another System capability that made the expansion to this country much easier and faster is Booking Manager Crew Lists. This unique feature allows the charter company to automatically declare crew and guests for each booking to the Croatian authorities, helping Istion Yachting to again immensely save time, especially considering the expanding volume of charters they do on a yearly basis.