how much to tip for 10 day liveaboard?

[drrich2]

The best thing about this kind of pay scheme is that the employees are motivated to work hard and give their all to earn extra money through commissions which is not a bad thing. You earn what you sow. You do good, you earn big bucks and a good reputation. The bad thing is when you pay someone a large salary every month and then that employee provides you with crappy service simply because they simply do not care. There is no motivation for them to do so and aim high.

Nailed it.

I'd you don't work hard you lose your job. Getting a tip shouldn't be a motivator to put in a honest days work. It drives me crazy that employers do not want to pay a fair wage they would rather extort customers to make up the difference. Charge more and pay the right wage.

The problem is this approach runs afoul of human psychology.

1.) Even a 'good' worker with a decent work ethic will find it easier to 'put his back into it' when his payoff is greater as a result. I despise being paid in advance for a job because it's easier for me to work to earn a reward that it is to pay off a debt.

2.) Tipping has inherent flexibility; a fixed salary does not. The former encourages a better effort.

3.) Tipping puts some of the financial leverage in the hands of the customers, who are onsite and the profit source, rather than all in management's hands. This creates a strong incentive to aim for high customer satisfaction. For all the griping about the culture of tipping, have you noticed how many glowing reviews about live-aboards we see?

4.) As for firing people who don't perform to the tip-seeker standard on a fixed salary, let's remember not every employer has a big pile of applications by good people for these jobs.

5.) A tip-seeker job culture encourages staff to please customers in a way that does not put as much burden on management as paying a fixed salary & relying on customer satisfaction surveys to make remote decisions to fire people who got bad scores.

I don't like haggling or bartering, and I don't like the awkwardness often associated with tipping type endeavors, but I gotta admit, the system 'as is' seems to be working very well for a lot of satisfied live-aboard customers. I hope to join them in a few months.

Richard.

 

[peeweediver]

Shasta_Man put it exactly right: "Any beef over the economics of paying someone for a job is really with the boat owners and once you are onboard for the trip, you're past that and it's about the guy working on the boat"
We could spend years debating the "fairness" of economic systems as they apply to being paid fairly for the work one does. I just can't see punishing the very people responsible for making my trip great because I wish there was another system in place. To each his/her own, but by not tipping or tipping poorly, are you really making a statement or just hurting the very people we need for these trips?
I'm off to Our World Underwater today here in Chicago. Below zero wind chills again, so any relief from thinking about that is most welcome. Maybe I'll get into a tipping debate with some of the live-aboard booths at the convention.

Rob

 

[Freewillow]

On European liveboard, the norm is 10 $ per day.

 

[NAM001]

Business is not run that way. There are no expence's that is not passed to the customer. Dont forget that outside of hte USA many countries residents can live like kings with 10 US bucks a day. I have seen places where workers pay the boss to work for them cause americans do not know the value of the tips they give to foreign workers. I remember being in the phillipeans and having my uniformns done by the barraks workers. They did a uniform and shined shoes for 50 cents and had your stuff at your doorstep each morning. One worker covering a dozen rooms would clear perhaps 3 dollars a day doing that. every day the sailors would give them a buck for the uniform. (50C tip) The salery of the workers was 15C an hour. So to keep it in perspective you were tipping 3 hours salery each morning per sailor. So 10 rooms getting over 3hr. wages in tips lets these guys clear nearly 40 hours of wages a day. Yet by american standards acusations are that the sailors take advantage of them. Now how would you like to get 40 hours pay for each 8 hour day? In short its not reasonable to talk about tips unless you consider thier standard /cost of living. Also dont forget that those tipped age getting it under the table so that if you tip 20% it is really 30 before taxes.

They should pay a fair wage. And if "they" did I am sure the cost would be borne by the owners out of the goodness of their hearts.

 

[Tool Belt]

Business is not run that way.

Guess my sarcasm wasn't obvious enough.

 

[Thailand Divers]

Hi, This depends on the country you are in. Here in Thailand Liveaboards the crew and boat boys are happy with between 500bht and 1,00bht per person. The dive guide / instructor is around 1,000bht per day upto around 5,000bht total shared between the group. But it varies between countries, length of trip and class of boat. To be honest its up to you as all tips are well recieved.

 

[NAM001]

Sorry

guess my sarcasm wasn't obvious enough.

 

[CJS]

I am Australian, so totally clueless about tipping. I just asked the trip director on the boat and did what
he said!

 

[scubadada]

I just finished 2 weeks on the Red Sea Aggressor. Besides one German guide and one Italian Guide, all the rest of the crew was Egyptian. They were all very friendly and warm, and worked very hard at all hours of the day. The service was absolutely exemplary and contributed to a wonderful dive vacation. I could not have asked more of the crew. I tipped a little over 20% of the full price of the 2 weeks, although I received a significant discount in my booking. The crew earned every penny of it. We were told in advance that the crew split any tips equally among all of them.

Unfortunately, tourism, including liveaboards, is doing extremely poorly in Egypt. My wife and I had taken an additional 2 week land and Nile based vacation in February. We had only 4 passengers on the Southern Route and 7 passengers on the Northern route. The boat carries 20 passengers. I hope that tourism picks up so that opportunities, like the one I just had, do not disappear.

 

[lv2dive]

I start at 15% and tip up from there depending on service. Also, on occasion, I've slipped an extra $20 or $50 to above-and-beyond individuals and made it clear that was just for them, and that I hadn't shorted the pooled tip. One trip, an extra tip went to the chef!