Bruno Genovese
Registered
After a couple of decades of not diving I returned to the sport this year and I'm working my way towards instructor level with the plan of making it part of my "retirement" work.
This allowed me the double perspective as both a customer and a future business owner. Such perspectives allowed me to notice some troubling business practices that can only hurt the business.
It seems to me that improved standardization of practices is necessary for the diving industry, but the real question is whether there is an industry-wide body that can help define those standards.
Below I list some of those troubling business practices:
1) Diving insurance - more fluff to fleece customers than substance? When I started diving again I researched the various diving insurances available. I discovered that my regular insurance from my job had excellent coverage for travel and diving illnesses and accidents, even including medivac and hyperbaric chamber coverage. So I didn't really need separate diving insurance, especially after discovering that most travel and diving insurances are really just "supplemental" coverage to your regular insurance. But during the research I saw many positive comments about DAN's excellent coordination of doctors and handling of the paperwork, and I ended up buying DAN World coverage. The first surprise was to discover that DAN does not have local numbers!!! This is a problem because in many countries where you are likely to dive the locals handling your emergency are probably cash-strapped and are very unlikely to make an international call to DAN. The lack of local numbers is insane in this days of cheap voice over IP... there are many vendors that make it trivially cheap. For example, I have local numbers on various countries that ring on my phone and/or computer for about $5/month per number and free incoming calls to my computer through DIDww.com. The second and even more disturbing surprise was on a recent diving trip to Colombia where I was told by the dive shop that DAN did not work at all there (even though the city had excellent diving infrastructure and even a hyperbaric chamber). Good thing I didn't need it. But these problems raise some serious doubts about the true value of diving insurance outside of the US and Europe.
2) Dive shops vary widely in quality of service, safety, practices and even reliability of gear. I have encountered both good and bad dive shops, some that want to make a quick buck and spend as little time and effort teaching their students, often skipping required portions of the training or failing to supply enough instructors and divemasters for a given group (my wife almost gave up on diving because of how horrible were her first 2 dive shop) while others are excellent. Similarly, I found myself diving with both good equipment as well as horribly maintained gear that leaked air and failed to operate properly. And those things weren't from "any shop", these were all certified PADI shops, and it didn't happen from lack of research... I typically spend at least a couple weeks filtering through the list of available dive shops at a destination to pick those that "appear" to be the better ones. Heck, I've even seen a so-called 5-star PADI dive shop that I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole (how did they get a 5-star rating is anyone's guess, or a sign that there's a flaw in that rating). Sites like Trip Advisor help to identify the truly good or truly bad dive shops - if you read all the comments - but what seems to be the real problem is the lack of a solid dive shop rating system independent of their individual rating agencies.
3) Finally, and the most disturbing, I noticed that while the certification organizations do an excellent job of describing and teaching safe practices, they don't go far enough to ensure that their certified dive shops follow those practices. The most glaring failure is about "diving sick". I believe all certification agencies clearly identify in their training that it is dangerous to dive sick, especially with a cold. But they don't seem to live nor enforce what they preach. Again I mention PADI, as that is the one I know best, but I suspect this is an industry wide symptom. I've talked to multiple instructors who were pressured by their dive shops to teach when they were sick - a clear violation of the safety rules - and on occasions where I tried to reschedule because I was sick (even when calling more than 24 hours in advance) the standard reply was "sorry we don't reschedule, our policy is that if you want to dive on a different day you will have to pay again". In a sport as expensive as diving, such policies create undue pressure on divers to take unnecessary risks with their health. This is one area where industry standards are needed, with with stiff penalties for dive shops that don't follow them. And it doesn't have to be terribly onerous to the dive shops, for example something like a standard 10% reschedule fee when sick for customers and some kind of mandatory "sick income insurance" for instructors and divemasters would help massively improve divers safety.
Those were just examples. I am sure there are many more. While each of us can individually address some of these matters and make our own businesses successful, the long term health of the diving industry depends on coming up with solutions and mechanisms to address matters in a standardized and enforceable way.
My ultimate question is: Is there an industry-wide body to establish such business standards? If there isn't one yet, what would be the best way to ensure that one is created?
This allowed me the double perspective as both a customer and a future business owner. Such perspectives allowed me to notice some troubling business practices that can only hurt the business.
It seems to me that improved standardization of practices is necessary for the diving industry, but the real question is whether there is an industry-wide body that can help define those standards.
Below I list some of those troubling business practices:
1) Diving insurance - more fluff to fleece customers than substance? When I started diving again I researched the various diving insurances available. I discovered that my regular insurance from my job had excellent coverage for travel and diving illnesses and accidents, even including medivac and hyperbaric chamber coverage. So I didn't really need separate diving insurance, especially after discovering that most travel and diving insurances are really just "supplemental" coverage to your regular insurance. But during the research I saw many positive comments about DAN's excellent coordination of doctors and handling of the paperwork, and I ended up buying DAN World coverage. The first surprise was to discover that DAN does not have local numbers!!! This is a problem because in many countries where you are likely to dive the locals handling your emergency are probably cash-strapped and are very unlikely to make an international call to DAN. The lack of local numbers is insane in this days of cheap voice over IP... there are many vendors that make it trivially cheap. For example, I have local numbers on various countries that ring on my phone and/or computer for about $5/month per number and free incoming calls to my computer through DIDww.com. The second and even more disturbing surprise was on a recent diving trip to Colombia where I was told by the dive shop that DAN did not work at all there (even though the city had excellent diving infrastructure and even a hyperbaric chamber). Good thing I didn't need it. But these problems raise some serious doubts about the true value of diving insurance outside of the US and Europe.
2) Dive shops vary widely in quality of service, safety, practices and even reliability of gear. I have encountered both good and bad dive shops, some that want to make a quick buck and spend as little time and effort teaching their students, often skipping required portions of the training or failing to supply enough instructors and divemasters for a given group (my wife almost gave up on diving because of how horrible were her first 2 dive shop) while others are excellent. Similarly, I found myself diving with both good equipment as well as horribly maintained gear that leaked air and failed to operate properly. And those things weren't from "any shop", these were all certified PADI shops, and it didn't happen from lack of research... I typically spend at least a couple weeks filtering through the list of available dive shops at a destination to pick those that "appear" to be the better ones. Heck, I've even seen a so-called 5-star PADI dive shop that I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole (how did they get a 5-star rating is anyone's guess, or a sign that there's a flaw in that rating). Sites like Trip Advisor help to identify the truly good or truly bad dive shops - if you read all the comments - but what seems to be the real problem is the lack of a solid dive shop rating system independent of their individual rating agencies.
3) Finally, and the most disturbing, I noticed that while the certification organizations do an excellent job of describing and teaching safe practices, they don't go far enough to ensure that their certified dive shops follow those practices. The most glaring failure is about "diving sick". I believe all certification agencies clearly identify in their training that it is dangerous to dive sick, especially with a cold. But they don't seem to live nor enforce what they preach. Again I mention PADI, as that is the one I know best, but I suspect this is an industry wide symptom. I've talked to multiple instructors who were pressured by their dive shops to teach when they were sick - a clear violation of the safety rules - and on occasions where I tried to reschedule because I was sick (even when calling more than 24 hours in advance) the standard reply was "sorry we don't reschedule, our policy is that if you want to dive on a different day you will have to pay again". In a sport as expensive as diving, such policies create undue pressure on divers to take unnecessary risks with their health. This is one area where industry standards are needed, with with stiff penalties for dive shops that don't follow them. And it doesn't have to be terribly onerous to the dive shops, for example something like a standard 10% reschedule fee when sick for customers and some kind of mandatory "sick income insurance" for instructors and divemasters would help massively improve divers safety.
Those were just examples. I am sure there are many more. While each of us can individually address some of these matters and make our own businesses successful, the long term health of the diving industry depends on coming up with solutions and mechanisms to address matters in a standardized and enforceable way.
My ultimate question is: Is there an industry-wide body to establish such business standards? If there isn't one yet, what would be the best way to ensure that one is created?
