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The Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, along with trade association partners from across the marine industry, recently released a 58-page publication aimed at helping marine dealers operate safely in a new marketplace concerned with the COVID-19 health crisis. The publication, titled “Guide to Operating Your Boat Business Safely,” provides a manual for running an organization that is safe for employees, customers and communities across North America. It includes sections that provide insights for Your Business, Your Customers and Your Employees, and each section highlights guidance from government agencies as well as best practices from inside and outside of the marine industry.

Inside the guide, businesses will not only find such insights as 7 Tips for Operating a Safe Marina; 49 Best Practices for Dealership Operations; How to Communicate Safe Boating to Customers; How to Keep Your Staff Safe; and 10 Steps to Train Your Staff on the New Rules, but they’ll also find 15 downloadable documents, signage, spreadsheets and more. The Guide also provides an index of 44 important links and recommended resources.

“Seemingly, with every day that goes by, more and more of our marine businesses are able to expand their operations, as government officials seek to open up the economy,” says MRAA’s Liz Keener, who served as the Publication Content Manager. “As that happens, our business leaders and their teams are operating in an environment that is much different from when they closed down or reduced operations a couple months ago. There are many questions about how to handle situations like sanitizing boats and operating a safe marina and communicating new protocols with customers and employees, and our efforts were designed to answer as many of those questions as possible.”

Through a collaborative effort, the Association of Marina Industries, Boating Industries Association of Upstate New York, Connecticut Marine Trades Association, Michigan Boating Industries Association, Marine Industries Association of South Florida, Marine Trades Association of New Jersey, Massachusetts Marine Trades Association, Marine Trades Association of Maryland, New York Sea Grant and Rhode Island Marine Trades Association worked together to strategize the content and contribute insights and content, and the MRAA took the lead on authoring, collecting, organizing and designing the publication.

The Guide to Operating Your Boat Business Safely is available to all at: https://www.mraa.com/page/GetBackToWork.

Additionally, NMMA recently created a resource to help the recreational boating industry implement proper social distancing, health and safety measures in manufacturing facilities, which is available here: https://www.nmma.org/assets/cabinets/Cabinet488/NMMA-Suggested-Best-Practices-for-Resuming-Operations.pdf.