Cannes Innovation Route Turns New Technology into an Owner’s Itinerary

The **Cannes Yachting Festival Innovation Route** gives owners, captains and project teams a structured way to explore new marine technology across the Old Port and Port Canto. For the 2025 edition, the official programme selected 42 solutions from 120 applications. Chosen exhibitors were identified throughout the show, allowing visitors to move directly from a broad yacht display to technologies with a specific innovation or environmental focus. The award structure covered solutions that improve the navigation experience, sustainable and responsible technologies, alternative-energy or propulsion systems, and products or processes with lower environmental impact. A special jury award recognised an especially bold or exemplary project. The programme also added a dedicated studio, with sessions at the Old Port in the morning and Port Canto in the afternoon. This format matters because new technology is difficult to evaluate from a product label alone. Owners and advisers need to understand installation requirements, service support, energy use and the operational compromises behind each claim. For a new-build or refit team, the best approach is to treat the route as a shortlist rather than a shopping list. Promising systems should proceed to technical due diligence, class review, lifecycle-cost analysis and reference checks before they enter a yacht specification.