Students doing diving research - We need your help!

[AndreF]

Hi together!

I am a German college student and currently we have a project going on, which we chose to focus around Scuba diving. Therefore we need volunteers with diving experience, who are willing to participate in a little research we prepared If you decide to help us, we will do a short interview with you, which will probably take around 5-10 minutes (we can use the private messaging function of the forum or a messenger like Skype to communicate). If you want to support us, just contact me via Private Messages or in this thread. We would really appreciate your help!

I hope you don't mind that we are using your forum to search for participants, but it is quite hard to find experienced divers if you do not have contacts or a network yourself.

Kind regards,
Andre

 

[abscuba]

Im game what research are you doing and what help do you need?

 

[Neilwood]

Im game what research are you doing and what help do you need?

Likewise might be interested but would want to know what first.

 

[AndreF]

Hey guys,the research is basically about behavorial patterns of divers when it comes to planning a diving trip. Like where you are getting your information about diving sites, if you choose your vacation depending on local diving opportunities and so on.Also I want to make clear that the research is in no way commercial or anything, it is for a theoretical project we are working on in order to pass our exams

 

[ibj40]

PM me, I'll be glad to help out.

 

[TMHeimer]

You can PM me as well. May be out---going diving....

 

[danvolker]

Hey guys,the research is basically about behavorial patterns of divers when it comes to planning a diving trip. Like where you are getting your information about diving sites, if you choose your vacation depending on local diving opportunities and so on.

Pretty complicated really....
You will find divers split between working class, middle class, upper-middle class, and even upper class people.
Because "active" divers represent only 1 to 3% or so of the general population, the ridiculousness of considering upper class divers due to their tiny population begins to fade a bit...
So you have all these different lifestyle classes of divers, each with very different criteria in HOW they will research a dive vacation destination, and how they will rate the issues associated with each one.

Each "class" has a real right to choose based on what they feel is important, and marketing research needs to reflect what's important for each niche.

IN a destination like Palm Beach, or the florida keys, you might see a disproportionate number of working class and middle class divers, looking for inexpensive dives, free shore dives, and $50 per night hotels...and in these same places, there will be divers looking for 4 or 5 star Hotels like the Marriott Resort On singer Island....Dive guests at this resort will likely do some free shore based dives at the nearby Blue Heron Bridge Marine Park....which clearly appeals to the less well heeled diver classes....but the Marriott divers will also like charter boats like JASA's Shearwater, with Air Conditioned cabin, galley with food served between dives, AND service aimed at a 5 star clientele. The $50 per night divers might be horrified to have Valet style diving....

Good Luck simplifying this !

 

[AndreF]

Hey Dan,

right now it is not about getting representative information or simplifying the overall situation. Our inital (qualitative) research is about impressions, understanding the target group, learning what is important to them and maybe even finding some common trades between the groups you just mentioned. Therefore opinions like yours are really valuable for us, since we get to know what the scene looks like.

 

[abscuba]

Just shoot me a PM

 

[danvolker]

Hey Dan,

right now it is not about getting representative information or simplifying the overall situation. Our inital (qualitative) research is about impressions, understanding the target group, learning what is important to them and maybe even finding some common trades between the groups you just mentioned. Therefore opinions like yours are really valuable for us, since we get to know what the scene looks like.

What might be fun, is to do this first for the "money no object" group, because it allows everything to be possible....Imaging can go to another level.

If your target market was someone like Richard Branson, or Robert Downey Jr....What would attract them to a dive resort or to a liveaboard?
What would be the services the dive operation would need to offer? What kind of adventures would need to be possible? What kind of instruction or "guiding/helping" would be essential? What gear would be best utilized? What would the Apres Diving be like?

And so on....