Interview to Benvenuto Vannucci, from Vannucci Maritime Group

Which are the perspectives of this group from Viareggio?
The answer came from Benvenuto Vannucci, head of the omonymous company whose business is represented by activities and investments in the nautical and port area, and by other services connected to the management of pleasure crafts, first of whom maritime agencies and ship owning representatives, the added value to the main business.

Vannucci Maritime Group is a totally Italian holding company specialized in managing, concierge service and a 360° assistance to yacht owners aiming at the purchase, the use and the management of super yachts. During the centuries, the companies which were connected to Gruppo Vannucci have developed a project focused on the excellence of the services for their customers, in order to provide the highest degree of specialization. A farsighted project which, during the past few decades, has brought the member companies of the group to top levels, and which has seen the holding company expand from year to year.

When was the Vannucci Group born?
The history of our company dates back to 1825, when Carlo Vannucci – wise ship owner and customs agent just three years after the building of the first dock area (Darsena) in Viareggio – opened the first maritime agency in Viareggio. Since then, and for the following six generations, it has been a sequence of events. The Vannuccis have been ship owners and maritime agents for a hundred and ninety years.

The Vannuccis have been ship owners and maritime agents for 190 years.

The first family ship was a XIX Century sailing ship for the Atlantic, at the time when crossing the Ocean would take a hundred days.

An International Group for a family-run company. What is the secret of the Vannucci dinasty?
“The companies which are part of our group have always maintained a management philosophy focused on a closed number of customers, in order to develop the maximum effort in the service provided with the highest level of quality. All our structures are organized to provide a global assistance in the yachting field, and in particular for super and mega yachts”.

What are the areas in which you operate directly or through controlled companies?
Our core business are maritime agencies, but we operate through controlled or participated companies in a large number of areas. The main ones are customs, concierge services, naval supplies, ship chandlers, ship building, tax consultancy, ship management, insurances, contracts, safety, residential and naval units sanitization.

A complete and at the same time very complex and multi-faceted picture. What’s your answer when they ask you what your job is?
To say it briefly, we are ship owning representatives for our customers in ports and nations where their yachts are while they are thousands kilometers far.

The concept is clear. And as a demonstration to this it is enough to say that all who know Mr Vannucci, talk about him as a real professional who, on behalf of his customers, treats ships and yachts in his care as they were his own, with a total dedication.
That’s always a great compliment. My family has operated in the ship owning field for centuries. I believe, from my own experience, that knowing what it means being a ship owner makes our job easier. It is a relationship based on extreme mutual trust which gives us a lot of satisfaction and which pays back for the daily efforts.
Our offices guarantee a twenty four hour service for three hundred and sixty five days a year.

Who are your customers?
Mainly ship owners and ship-management companies. We are programmed to take care of a “closed number” of customers: they are all important customers for us, who benefit of a tailor-made service especially studied for their ship and their necessities. This means we have customers whose yacht’s management is entirely run by us, and others to whom we only provide a range of minor services such as port booking or the management of a single cruise. With the member companies of our group, we manage an overall fleet of about two hundred units in the world, ranging between thirty and one hundred and sixty meters long.

What’s your relationship with Tuscany, your homeland?
Tuscany is a true love. It is one of the major regions in the world for its historical, artistic, cultural, culinary and landscaping heritage, as well as being the cradle of the Renaissance and of the Italian language, which has come almost completely from the Tuscan dialect. Tuscany has inaugurated the yachting season and has exported this experience on a global scale.

What’s the first excellence you think of when you think about your group?
Definitely my family. We are proud of being a family-run company. The services we offer on the market, the experience and the competence have been passed for six generations, from father to son. Particularly in customs and tax consulting we have a specialized department of yachting amongst the first in Italy.
This is capable of providing with all necessary material, connected to tax and customs operations, those ship owners building yachts and operating activities of commercial or charter nature in Italy.

What are the future projects and challenges?
We still have many projects to develop. The main challenge is to keep our group and our companies strictly on a family-run basis, just as it is in our tradition, looking at the future through the path traced by values passed on from generation to generation.

 

Vannucci Maritime Group
piazza Pacini, 9 Viareggio (LU) Italy