DICKERSON: It’s trending up, after a very
strong downturn. The recession slammed
all discretionary purchases. Certainly, boats
and PWCs fit in that category. Also, the
difficulty of getting loans over a period of
time has been an issue. The recession hit the
boating industry overall, and certainly
PWCs, very hard. We are still recouping
from that, but we’re starting to see an
increase in sales every year. And this year has
been better than last. But, we have a long
ways to go to reach back the sales figures
frombefore the great recession.
It’s been a real challenge for the industry.
One of the results of the downturn – it did
start a little bit before the recession, but
Honda, which used to have a presence in
the market, dropped out. So that was the
last company to exit the manufacturing of
PWC.
June-July 2014
| BusinessWorld |185
