Why do Dive Centers and Professionals do it to themselves?

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I actually think most of the PADI texts are quite good quality learning materials. They are not cheap to create - I'm talking creating the content here, not printing the manuals.

For comparison I have a first aid manual in my hands produced by my provincial worksafe agency that has a page long list of editors with various high level degrees - and it is much worse than the PADI materials.

My teenaged daughters first comment when watching PADI video and reading the material for OW. “High production value”.
 
How long ago was that? There were some glitches, mainly in selecting between IOS vs. computer based learning for me. Otherwise it worked just fine.
About one year ago. They were unable to supply the study materials, only the tests. I told them to just give me PDFs, which of course, they resisted. They relented after not too much pushing, but it was a pain in my a$$ rather than them taking a customer satisfaction POV and just solving my problem immediately and asking for my continued help in solving their's. I don't appreciate that sort of customer support.
 
Firefox is my browser of choice, but I still have no script set on stun. It's the malicious scripts that get you. That, and if you have admin privileges, then any malware can bull right in, make itself at home, slow you down and give up all your secrets.
Yep, FF for me too. I'm set up similarly to you, and I make everything give me a reason to enable stuff. Same with my iOS apps. Everything wants access to everything always. I give access to nothing never then wait to see what doesn't work with my settings. After that I either start opening up access or delete the app.
 
What do you think of Tor?
I never used it.

FireFox, through No Script, allows me a very granular approach to various websites. It works. It allows me to control who sees what from my laptop. I have doubleclick and other Google scripts turned off... even on ScubaBoard.
 
Having been around the dive industry for 30+ years, I am always amazed at the power of Certifications Agency sway over dive centers and instructors. Despite the fact that X Agency etc actually do not teach people how to dive, or even train the instructors who teach people, they seem to have convinced the dive centers and instructors, they would not survive without them.

What frustrates me the most is that dive centers actually do 99% of all the advertising for training agencies. Visit any website, and they explain why they need to XXX Certfication course often making the certification logo bigger than there own business on it and there store.

The reality is the dive centres do 99% of the real training and X agency provides theory material that is verbose, boring and up 100% overpriced. ( Online Video and a storing a record of Certification won't cost more than a couple of dollars). Dive Centers and staff do the real training, take most of the risk, yet are ripped off by certification agencies. The worst part is that some dive centres will try and say they will only take X certification. Probably complain about the cost!!!!

Think about it. If you had a student complete do 8 hours on online training vs someone who just did the practical (pretty sure the instructor could tell them not to hold the breath), who would be the more competent diver?

I raise this because of it something that is obvious to me, but then I am not a dive instructor so I am not invested in any particular agency.

I challenge any dive center to take their agency off there website/store and see if the world would end. I can say from experience it won't. If X certification is such a powerful brand then let them prove their worth. My experience is that if you tell the customer they need X certification, then, sure enough, the customer will expect that.

Maybe I am crazy and want to hear some others thoughts.

IO
I have read this over a few times, and I have not yet figured out what your whole point is. The tone of your post shouts that you seem to think that emphasizing a certification agency relationship is a negative for a dive shop, but I can't find anything in your post that suggest what you think that negative might be.

And aligning your business with a well known, established, quality brand, and shouting that to the world is good business sense. You are "borrowing" their reputation. There are different agencies, and different ways to align with them, so there are certainly different options available to suit your own business model or style of running your business.

I am a PADI shop and instructor, and PADI does have a substantial emphasis on driving divers into their member's businesses. I could go on and on. (To be clear, I can find some things that I wish they would do differently or better, but on the whole they do an awful lot exactly right. Their success is not accidental.)

So my question to you is: "Why do Dive Centers and Professionals do WHAT to themselves?!?

I largely agree with you, the 'balance of power' in our industry is a strange one. Basically we are 'held hostage' by the training agencies, which business model is basically selling a) training materials and b) licences to those that want to train using these training materials. Their business model does not generate a lot of revenue on certified divers going on some fun dives, either locally or as a trip.

So the business model is one that actually largely hurts a lot of other players in the industry (dive shops and pro's). Training agencies thrive on 'the more pass through the gate', and substantially less on repeat divers which is what the rest of the industry benefits the most form.
So actually the interests of the largest and most well known names in our business are not necessary aligned with everybody else.

Andy (Scubatech Philippines) explained it best in his excellent blog post: An Evaluation of the Modern Scuba Diving Training Industry %
Just from a PADI perspective, yes their primary emphasis is on new diver acquisition. They have plenty of other initiatives (some successful, some not so much) and efforts to reach certified divers and get them active again, or to continue diving, but that is not the low hanging fruit of getting someone excited about it in the first place. I get the impression your career has largely been in what I will call "destination" diving - much/most of your customer base finds you rather than you finding them. For businesses that operate where their divers live, that is very different. Then it is OUR job to keep the diver diving - create opportunities, be in constant communication, be sure they know what they are missing if they don't join in. It is my job and no one else's to build my own repeat customer base.

So I am not clear on how an emphasis on creating a pool of new divers "hurts" your business. While that may not have an immediate benefit for you, just how does it hurt you? And you have to be new at some point to become a repeat diver - you need to figure out how to influence one or both of the following choices that are made by a certified diver:
  1. I have some free time and some $$ to spend on it. Do I want to go diving, or do I want to....?
  2. Okay, I want to go diving. Where should I go? Who should I go with?
And then there is the part of a business model that "does not generate a lot of revenue" called pricing. Well, that is the dynamics of the market place. Competition for that new diver has driven pricing for certification down to the bone. Yes, I wish we were able to charge what that Open Water course is actually worth rather than just barely cover costs, but that is NOT the "fault" of any certification/instructional agency.

PADI Travel | Scuba Diving Vacations

And they are changing that. PADI Travel | Scuba Diving Vacations

If that works, how long before other agencies follow? And of course should it work well would the next step be branding and selling dive gear? The dive industry is changing, and it looks like using the PADI name to take over lucrative portions of the business seems to be the major move.



Bob
The PADI Travel affiliation is structured to supplement and benefit the member shops. I am sure there are many shops with highly successful travel operations that don't need them, and perhaps a few of those might even consider them competition. But if executed right PADI Travel can actually help me add a source of revenue for my shop, while doing much of the work for me.

More like Mares/SSI? I can't say it won't happen, but I don't see it having the benefit that one might at first think. That kind of team up might actually hurt a brand. If Mares tells me that I have to have SSI to be a Mares customer, or that I will get better wholesale costs if I also have SSI, I might just choose to go with a different equipment brand rather than fall in line. You will notice that PADI is scrupulous about showing a broad range of gear brands in any and every image they create. I don't know if you can find a single diver in their material that is wearing only one brand. Now if they started to put only one brand in every image, how long do you think it would take for some members that don't sell that brand to start switching rather than constantly advertising product they don't sell?
 
The PADI Travel affiliation is structured to supplement and benefit the member shops. I am sure there are many shops with highly successful travel operations that don't need them, and perhaps a few of those might even consider them competition. But if executed right PADI Travel can

I can understand stearing divers to a PADI destination, and perhaps a commission for referring divers to their site. I don't see the benefit to a shop that has a successful travel program, and can see the compition for for divers between them, although I could easily have missed something.

More like Mares/SSI? I can't say it won't happen, but I don't see it having the benefit that one might at first think.

I'm thinking more like a PADI branded jacket, reg, mask and fins produced buy say Sherwood for example. For those that want to be a real PADI diver.



Bob
 
Having taught for a shop that switched to SSI, I found the regional rep to be very hands off with pressure to sell Mares. If you want to, they are happy to have the business, but there was no preferential treatment. Maybe because this shop was part of a 6-shop chain, and had incredible negotiating power with their volume.
 
About one year ago. They were unable to supply the study materials, only the tests. I told them to just give me PDFs, which of course, they resisted. They relented after not too much pushing, but it was a pain in my a$$ rather than them taking a customer satisfaction POV and just solving my problem immediately and asking for my continued help in solving their's. I don't appreciate that sort of customer support.

I did mine in June of this year and everything worked great. Did most of it on my IPad.
 
I did mine in June of this year and everything worked great. Did most of it on my IPad.
iPad was my requirement that they couldn't satisfy. That's what they had to fix. You're welcome.
 
I can understand stearing divers to a PADI destination, and perhaps a commission for referring divers to their site. I don't see the benefit to a shop that has a successful travel program, and can see the compition for for divers between them, although I could easily have missed something.
Unless a shop is operating at the level of a wholesaler, PADI Travel can fulfill much of the same function as a dive travel agent. Some things (including financials) better, some things less so.
It is not just another branded wholesaler tossed out into the marketplace. It is also a service/partner heavily marketed to member shops, including detailed presentations on the benefits and the mechanics at DEMA each year.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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