MYS 2013: Tatiana Chernyavskaya of Hunt & Palmer

With its headquarters in the UK and offices in the US, India, Hong Kong, Australia, Germany and Russia, they can offer a level of worldwide coverage that is almost unmatched across the industry.

We sat down with Tatiana Chernyavskaya, Business Development Manager at Hunt & Palmer, at the 2013 Monaco Yacht Sow to discuss her company’s background their efforts to diversify into the yacht charter market.

“We originated from financial roadshows doing the private jet, charter for the investment specialists going to different destinations,” she told us at Superyachts.com’s Breaking News Centre. “But then we have the leisure factor as well, we have a department dealing with celebrities and musicians having their global tours, and now we work with different corporations and private individuals chartering jets all over the world.”

So in an ultra competitive marketplace, how do Hunt & Palmer stay ahead of the curve?

“Well I think 27 years of experience first of all,” she said. “So we have a great crowd of specialists knowing every single place in the world, the best place to go, if you have pets on-board, plus for example if you’re going to ski then you have lots of baggage and not all aircrafts are suitable for that.

“We advise our clients what aircrafts to use, and not all the brokers specialise in the world, so for example there are loads of them in France or in Moscow or in London, specialising in Europe only, but we have worldwide coverage.”

In addition to their private jet service, Hunt & Palmer are now also offering a dedicated service for private yacht charter. What can she tell us about that?

“We are trying to be not only a jet charter broker but also offer additional services, for example yacht charter,” she said. “So we have a new department for this that just opened up and we already had six yacht charters, including a charter of Utopia."

So what does she feel is the biggest challenge for her company right now?

“The biggest challenge from my point of view is technology, because it develops really fast,” she said. “At the moment there is no online booking system so that the client can go there and book a jet online.

“It might happen in a few years time, but still although it’s a challenge on the other hand I think VIP services in general are very personalised, and you really need to know the client. So I think at some point some people will book online but a rich person world prefer to pick up the phone and call a person that knows everything about them.”

You can view the full video interview with Tatiana Chernyavskaya above.