The 'Business' of Diving?

With the DEMA show right around the corner, it got me thinking about divers, diving, equipment, trips, sand, beaches and good times in sunny, tropical waters :bfish:

BTW, I am not "in the business", but ask this question purely from a curiousity standpoint:

Q: Of all the money that is spent pursuing the sport of SCUBA, what percentage of the total money spent would fall into the following categories: (By total money spent I include dive travel, dive equipment (new purchases/service/repair), air fills, instruction/training, dive insurance, etc.)

(A) Resort Diver - not OW certified, but dives once in a while on vacation.
(B) "New Diver" - still getting feet wet - OW or AOW with say, less than 25 total dives
(C) "Diver" - one who plans vacations around diving (I guess I fall into this category) May own or rent gear.
(D) Frequent Diver - Needs to dive at least monthly. Owns gear and may have professional credentials.
(E) DM or Instructor - SCUBA professional (not full-time)
(F) DM or Instructor - SCUBA professional as a full-time vocation
(G) Technical Diver - Diver Instructor or otherwise who is certified in one or more technical diving activites such as Cave Diving, Decompression Diving, and/or wreck diving. (Add Rebreathers if desired as well)

Edit: I just added "G". I realize my categories aren't perfect and do not cover 100% of divers, but I'd be happy if you gave any feedback nonetheless!

This unoffical poll's choices are slightly skewed. I am an OW certified diver wth more than 25 dives, less than 100, but I am a frequent diver. Since that is the case, I am part B and part D.

(B) "New Diver" - still getting feet wet - OW or AOW with say, less than 25 total dives

(D) Frequent Diver - Needs to dive at least monthly. Owns gear and may have professional credentials.

If you're asking how much money each of the categories below spends on SCUBA, I beleive that absolutely nobody has this information, since it would require collecting demographic and financial data from all the dive operators and shops around the world. None want to share it and most probably don't have hard numbers anyway.

If you only want relative terms, I'd guess that C spends more than B, and B spends more than A.

However, once you have everything, diving becomes really cheap, except for equipment maintenence and air fills. Travel costs range from $2 for gas up to thousands of dollars for around-the-world trips to exotic locations.

Terry

Esteban:

With the DEMA show right around the corner, it got me thinking about divers, diving, equipment, trips, sand, beaches and good times in sunny, tropical waters :bfish:

BTW, I am not "in the business", but ask this question purely from a curiousity standpoint:

Q: Of all the money that is spent pursuing the sport of SCUBA, what percentage of the total money spent would fall into the following categories: (By total money spent I include dive travel, dive equipment (new purchases/service/repair), air fills, instruction/training, dive insurance, etc.)

(A) Resort Diver - not OW certified, but dives once in a while on vacation.
(B) "New Diver" - still getting feet wet - OW or AOW with say, less than 25 total dives
(C) "Diver" - one who plans vacations around diving (I guess I fall into this category) May own or rent gear.
(D) Frequent Diver - Needs to dive at least monthly. Owns gear and may have professional credentials.
(E) DM or Instructor - SCUBA professional (not full-time)
(F) DM or Instructor - SCUBA professional as a full-time vocation

Click to expand...

Esteban:

With the DEMA show right around the corner, it got me thinking about divers, diving, equipment, trips, sand, beaches and good times in sunny, tropical waters :bfish:

BTW, I am not "in the business", but ask this question purely from a curiousity standpoint:

Q: Of all the money that is spent pursuing the sport of SCUBA, what percentage of the total money spent would fall into the following categories: (By total money spent I include dive travel, dive equipment (new purchases/service/repair), air fills, instruction/training, dive insurance, etc.)

(A) Resort Diver - not OW certified, but dives once in a while on vacation.
(B) "New Diver" - still getting feet wet - OW or AOW with say, less than 25 total dives
(C) "Diver" - one who plans vacations around diving (I guess I fall into this category) May own or rent gear.
(D) Frequent Diver - Needs to dive at least monthly. Owns gear and may have professional credentials.
(E) DM or Instructor - SCUBA professional (not full-time)
(F) DM or Instructor - SCUBA professional as a full-time vocation

Click to expand...

I would add

(G) Technical Diver - Diver Instructor or otherwise who is certified in one or more technical diving activites such as Cave Diving, Decompression Diving, and/or wreck diving. (Add Rebreathers if desired as well)

I fall into G and own enough gear to outft around 5 or 6 OW rec divers to pursue my interests. I don't really want to think about the dollar value on training or gear or gas fills.....

in_cavediver:

I would add

(G) Technical Diver - Diver Instructor or otherwise who is certified in one or more technical diving activites such as Cave Diving, Decompression Diving, and/or wreck diving. (Add Rebreathers if desired as well)

Click to expand...

Excellent suggestion...I'll edit my original post to include this. :idea3:

all I know is that its an addictive habit and sure costs a lot!

I read somewhere on the board recently that the drop out rate in Scuba is about 90% ? or so. Most of the divers I see in PV are once a year divers. Would you include their vacation costs as well? If so, I think they would be the largest category. The "Discover Scuba" course has a lot of people trying diving for the first time but most will not become regular divers.

Interesting article...

http://www.divenewswire.com/NewsITems.aspx?newsID=7630

Adding "G" was a good choice. One thing most of the industry noticed several years ago was how much money technical divers spent on equipment compared to normal recreational divers.