The changing Scuba Industry

[Wookie]

because believing the only mark you can make is something along the lines of curing cancer. Once you believe that you are limited, you are.

The only epitaph I want to leave is "he never lied to us", because your reputation is really the only thing you leave behind.

 

[Antmany2k]

The only epitaph I want to leave is "he never lied to us", because your reputation is really the only thing you leave behind.

very wise words

 

[David Wilson]

The only epitaph I want to leave is "he never lied to us", because your reputation is really the only thing you leave behind.

Who steals my purse steals trash. 'Tis something, nothing:
'Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands.
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.

William Shakespeare: Othello

 

[boulderjohn]

I live in Colorado, where the actual diving experience is, well, unique. I spend two months every winter in South Florida, where I get in a pretty fair number of both recreational and technical dives. I also take bigger dive trips. The last three were to the Philippines, Australia, and Bali. I have done a lot of instruction for a local dive shop. I was actually planning to write about some changes I have seen in the last couple of years. Of course, what I will describe is only what I have seen, which could possibly be totally out of line with what is going on else where.

• It may just be because of the dive operators I use, but on the recreational dives I am on, I do not see the supposed helpless divers everyone else complains about. All the divers I see seem to be pretty much good to go. I have had a number of insta-buddies who have been just fine to dive with.
• In fact, I am seeing a lot of people doing recreational trips who look like they have training beyond the basics. In fact, I have seen a number in Florida wearing doubles or rebreathers.
• On the technical trips, I am seeing a lot more rebreathers than I used to. A lot more. I am beginning to feel like a dinosaur in my OC gear.
• In Florida, the tech market seems to be going strong. In Colorado, it is quite the opposite.

In terms of OW instruction, the actual trend is the opposite of the ScubaBoard cliché--the PADI standards for OW instruction are stronger and include more than they did 5 years ago. Their AOW course has been punched up a bit this year as well.

How those standards are implemented, as always, depends upon the local shop. The shop for which I most recently did OW instruction (I now do only tech) quite frankly sees OW students only as potential purchasers of equipment and (especially) dive travel customers. The Director of Instruction said to me "Instructors are a dime a dozen." He said they have someone new coming in looking for work about every other week. They can all do the job required of them: get people certified so that they can buy equipment and go on trips. I think that is short sighted myself. I think that if a diver leaves a program feeling very safe and proficient, that diver is much more likely to continue diving than one who is unsure and struggles on that first dive trip. I think a diver who has a great time on that first dive trip with those superior skills is more likely to continue to buy gear and take trips, but many dive shops obviously think I am way off base with that idea.

In dive resort-type operations, the operators I have used have been much more inclined to watch over your diving and limit what you can do for safety reasons. I dived off of a liveaboard in Australia about 16 years ago, and when we got to the site, we were on our own to do our dives. They put a DM in the water, and we could follow him if we wished, but that was our choice. On my most recent Australian liveaboard experience, we all had to do a checkout dive, and we were put into groups based on that experience. My friends and I were a group of our own, and we were free to go off on our own. All the others had to follow a DM. When I was in Bali this fall, on our second location, my buddies (certified Deep Divers) and I (tech instructor) were with the same DM the entire time, and he seemed terrified to take us below 20 meters (66 feet). On one dive I dipped down to 100 feet to see a particularly beautiful bit of coral, and afterward he seemed to think I had just cheated death.

 

[cerich]

The previously described dive shop in Houston with the beer fridge? The one who run a big trip and a little trip a month? They describe a little trip as a week in Cozumel, a big trip may be Raja Ampat or Truk. If I go through group travel, (exceedingly rare), I go with them. Why? They run "Show up at the airport on time" trips. That is, give them your credit card and tell them where and when you want to go, and show up at the airport on time. They have taxis, transfers, layovers, sorb, helium, hot and cold running hookers (if you are into that), and a trip leader to make sure your luggage got off the conveyor and onto the shuttle, or if it didn't, that a set of rental gear is waiting for you at destination. This is the extra value that they add.

Having been in the dive business, I can tell you about the other shop trips, where the trip leader doesn't want a buddy because he is frigging around with his new camera and way too busy to give someone buoyancy tips.

It's real nice to get "free trips", but a proper free trip should come with lots of strings attached. A free trip is a lot like a free boat. Nothing in the world so expensive.

I recall I once called you and caught you as you were running around the entire south Florida land mass buying/begging gear to accommodate some divers that booked a trip with a "dive pro" on your vessel, the dive pro hadn't even shown up yet and you knowing the general plan for the trip realized how ill prepared his customers were, so you set out to fix it. that dive pro wasn't a value add, they were a value subtract.

I imagine that the customers won't be so enthused about booking thru a dive pro in the future..and the dive pro will just look for the next mark

 

[Doc]

Warm Water Pretty Fish Perspective (since 1972)

Dive Travel has now become Travel with some Diving

Gone are the days of dive-dive-dive. The Dive Travelers of today want the "whole island vibe/experience", meaning the full access meal at the Jimmy Buffet.

My broadest experience is from Roatan- if there ever was a canary in the mine, Roatan is it. Here we saw the recent metamorphisis from "all you can do is dive" from 1972-1985, then to 6 Flags over Twitty City, miniature golf, Tiger Woods golf, zip lines, ferris wheels, casinos, shark rodeos, dolphin pesters, and more.

90+% of visitors use West End Facilities. Most of the certified divers are doing 3-5 dives in a week. Purchased ten dive packages are approximately 80% used.

How about "dive resorts"? Divers at AKR are now logging in the realm of 14/week. There are a lot of nearby diversions, West End is a short cab ride away. At the more remote CocoView, logged dives are down from their one-time high average of 24 to 19.

Spousal pressure? ADD? Alcohol addiction? Perceived need to practice and exhibit other more dramatic self-destructive behaviors? PADI and DEMA did the psychoanalysis back in the early 1980's as to what makes people want to dive. It surprisingly came down to embracing risky behavior. They threw out the "diving is safe" mantra, cuddled up the the "Jaws" phenomena (of which they were quite afraid), and gave us, "Dive into Adventure". Our target market audience wanted to be scared... a little.

LDS parking lots were filled with pick up trucks that had tools in them. Now replaced with mom-vans and Lexum. Do not lose sight of the harsh economic realities of today. Disposable income got pre-disposed.

Note the number of posts from Noob Divers... "Coming to Roatan to get certified and we want to see them Whale Sharks".

Ticket punched, go drink, on to Belize for the Blue Hole. Then done.

 

[cerich]

Warm Water Pretty Fish Perspective (since 1972)

Dive Travel has now become Travel with some Diving

Gone are the days of dive-dive-dive. The Dive Travelers of today want the "whole island vibe/experience", meaning the full access meal at the Jimmy Buffet.

My broadest experience is from Roatan- if there ever was a canary in the mine, Roatan is it. Here we saw the recent metamorphisis from "all you can do is dive" from 1972-1985, then to 6 Flags over Twitty City, miniature golf, Tiger Woods golf, zip lines, ferris wheels, casinos, shark rodeos, dolphin pesters, and more.

90+% of visitors use West End Facilities. Most of the certified divers are doing 3-5 dives in a week. Purchased ten dive packages are approximately 80% used.

How about "dive resorts"? Divers at AKR are now logging in the realm of 14/week. There are a lot of nearby diversions, West End is a short cab ride away. At the more remote CocoView, logged dives are down from their one-time high average of 24 to 19.

Note the number of posts from Noob Divers... "Coming to Roatan to get certified and we want to see them Whale Sharks".

Ticket punched, go drink, on to Belize for the Blue Hole. Then done.

you just described a opportunity for the dive center that books travel, not a problem

 

[cerich]

In terms of OW instruction, the actual trend is the opposite of the ScubaBoard cliché--the PADI standards for OW instruction are stronger and include more than they did 5 years ago. Their AOW course has been punched up a bit this year as well.

How those standards are implemented, as always, depends upon the local shop. The shop for which I most recently did OW instruction (I now do only tech) quite frankly sees OW students only as potential purchasers of equipment and (especially) dive travel customers. The Director of Instruction said to me "Instructors are a dime a dozen." He said they have someone new coming in looking for work about every other week. They can all do the job required of them: get people certified so that they can buy equipment and go on trips. I think that is short sighted myself. I think that if a diver leaves a program feeling very safe and proficient, that diver is much more likely to continue diving than one who is unsure and struggles on that first dive trip. I think a diver who has a great time on that first dive trip with those superior skills is more likely to continue to buy gear and take trips, but many dive shops obviously think I am way off base with that idea.

agree 100%

 

[Wookie]

I recall I once called you and caught you as you were running around the entire south Florida land mass buying/begging gear to accommodate some divers that booked a trip with a "dive pro" on your vessel, the dive pro hadn't even shown up yet and you knowing the general plan for the trip realized how ill prepared his customers were, so you set out to fix it. that dive pro wasn't a value add, they were a value subtract.

I imagine that the customers won't be so enthused about booking thru a dive pro in the future..and the dive pro will just look for the next mark

And I made a very good living taking that "dive pro's" divers diving again, later. In fact, if you take care of your customer (I don't care if it's diving, or oil changes, or at the dentist) they will come back. Just the level of service we got routinely 10 years ago seems to be gone. I cringe when I pull into the oil change place and they have a little tiny waiting room with 4 greasy chairs stacked on top of one another and Rikki Lake playing too loudly on the TV. With three other overweight folks waiting too.

 

[Wookie]

Warm Water Pretty Fish Perspective (since 1972)

Dive Travel has now become Travel with some Diving

Gone are the days of dive-dive-dive. The Dive Travelers of today want the "whole island vibe/experience", meaning the full access meal at the Jimmy Buffet.

My broadest experience is from Roatan- if there ever was a canary in the mine, Roatan is it. Here we saw the recent metamorphisis from "all you can do is dive" from 1972-1985, then to 6 Flags over Twitty City, miniature golf, Tiger Woods golf, zip lines, ferris wheels, casinos, shark rodeos, dolphin pesters, and more.

90+% of visitors use West End Facilities. Most of the certified divers are doing 3-5 dives in a week. Purchased ten dive packages are approximately 80% used.

How about "dive resorts"? Divers at AKR are now logging in the realm of 14/week. There are a lot of nearby diversions, West End is a short cab ride away. At the more remote CocoView, logged dives are down from their one-time high average of 24 to 19.

Spousal pressure? ADD? Alcohol addiction? Perceived need to practice and exhibit other more dramatic self-destructive behaviors? PADI and DEMA did the psychoanalysis back in the early 1980's as to what makes people want to dive. It surprisingly came down to embracing risky behavior. They threw out the "diving is safe" mantra, cuddled up the the "Jaws" phenomena (of which they were quite afraid), and gave us, "Dive into Adventure". Our target market audience wanted to be scared... a little.

LDS parking lots were filled with pick up trucks that had tools in them. Now replaced with mom-vans and Lexum.

Note the number of posts from Noob Divers... "Coming to Roatan to get certified and we want to see them Whale Sharks".

Ticket punched, go drink, on to Belize for the Blue Hole. Then done.

I remember my first trip to CocoView with Cap10 Randy. Someone in the group was complaining about the meal. I reminded them that they were in Roatan, there was no HEB or Albertson's to just go get steaks, and to relax and enjoy what the island had to offer, they weren't going to get sick, and they might discover that they liked it. I got the cow look. I remember my first trip to Havana.....