Shipping and Port Marketing

The port and shipping industries are currently encountering a profound period of change. In particular, the shipping sector experiences a chronicle overcapacity and shipowners are constantly in trouble to capture demand. Shipping business is considered capital intensive, freight rates are unlikely to be bounced back in a short term. As a consequence, shipping firms have difficulty having generated reasonable profits. Analogously, ports are called to cope with unprecedented levels of competition due to the slow-down of the world trade and the emergence of overcapacity concerns. Terminal operators are rediscovering market risks and struggling to offer shipowners service packages rewarding their own balance sheet. Under this perspective, top managers, commercial executives, ship agents and brokers are all enforced to explore a new way of business-making; some of which are marketing policies in terms of segmentation, market positioning, service levels, pricing mechanisms, relations with stakeholders and value proposition solutions.