More people are looking up superyachts than ever before. Typically speaking, this would be considered good news, especially for an industry that speaks so often and loudly about entering ‘the real world’. However, in the context of global politics, and the current general perception of the world’s financial elite, the degree of negative attention and public disdain towards the industry should be treated with caution. 

European households are currently bracing for a harsh Winter, and have already taken to the streets to protest against the cost of living crisis. With such anxiety surrounding global income equality, perhaps now is a sensitive time to begin boasting about order books with billions of dollars worth of diesel-guzzling superyachts.

According to Google Trends, ‘superyacht’ as a search term peaked in popularity in both August and February this year, which also coincides with the beginning of the sanction fallout, and the judicial sale of the formerly Rusian-owned yacht ‘Axioma’. Prior to this, data from Google suggests that ‘superyachts’ as a topic of discussion was actually becoming less popular, with 2022 excluded from the equation, the highest peak in popularity was in August 2006. The numbers on the graph represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given…