Tipping?

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nagel

Contributor
Messages
481
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24
Location
Knob Noster Missouri
# of dives
200 - 499
It's getting colder outside and the dive season is ending (for us). So, what better thing to do but let's poke the bear a little and talk about tipping.

Don't get me wrong I very much appreciate dive masters, boat captains, boat crews, etc. I think they typically go far above and beyond to ensure the safety and comfort for everybody who dives with them. I typically offer IMHO a descent tip if not a little above standard and typically with disregard of actual service. Most of the time the service is 2nd to non, but occasionally somebody may just go through the motions, but they still get a tip from me. I have been that person that shook their head when others passed on offering the tip.

With all that said, part of me wonders why the industry rely's so much on tipping? I mean many boat dives, liveaboards, dive excursions are not cheap. We are paying a lot for these trips...where does this money go? Why is it not shared with the crew? Why are we the customers left to feel shame for not tipping and told most of their salary comes from the tips? Where I work we have many employees and to make the business go we have to pay them a good wage...we can't go to our customers and say they need to tip our employees because they did their job for you. Why don't Dive Operators pay their employees a descent wage and get away from the tipping aspect or at least bring it back to where it should be - an extra Thank You for taking care of me. Not something that is relied upon to pay bills.

Some will say, okay stop the tipping and the cost of the Dive Trip goes up. It's already there if you add in the tip at the end that you are "shamed" into offering. Why not just make this part of the cost and move on? Tipping is an "extra" not a "right". It should be given to somebody who did a good job. Some may say if you do away with tipping then the service will go down. Really, will it? If you pay them appropriately they will want the job and if they get tips above that they will have some incentive to go above and beyond.

Anyway, I think you get my point. I"m interested in others thoughts and I will continue to tip and I think they deserve it (normally), but it does make me wonder why the business plan is set up this way.

Let the arrows begin..........
 
It's getting colder outside and the dive season is ending (for us). So, what better thing to do but let's poke the bear a little and talk about tipping.

Don't get me wrong I very much appreciate dive masters, boat captains, boat crews, etc. I think they typically go far above and beyond to ensure the safety and comfort for everybody who dives with them. I typically offer IMHO a descent tip if not a little above standard and typically with disregard of actual service. Most of the time the service is 2nd to non, but occasionally somebody may just go through the motions, but they still get a tip from me. I have been that person that shook their head when others passed on offering the tip.

With all that said, part of me wonders why the industry rely's so much on tipping?
I mean many boat dives, liveaboards, dive excursions are not cheap. We are paying a lot for these trips...where does this money go? Why is it not shared with the crew? Why are we the customers left to feel shame for not tipping and told most of their salary comes from the tips? Where I work we have many employees and to make the business go we have to pay them a good wage...we can't go to our customers and say they need to tip our employees because they did their job for you. Why don't Dive Operators pay their employees a descent wage and get away from the tipping aspect or at least bring it back to where it should be - an extra Thank You for taking care of me. Not something that is relied upon to pay bills.

Some will say, okay stop the tipping and the cost of the Dive Trip goes up. It's already there if you add in the tip at the end that you are "shamed" into offering. Why not just make this part of the cost and move on? Tipping is an "extra" not a "right". It should be given to somebody who did a good job. Some may say if you do away with tipping then the service will go down. Really, will it? If you pay them appropriately they will want the job and if they get tips above that they will have some incentive to go above and beyond.

Anyway, I think you get my point. I"m interested in others thoughts and I will continue to tip and I think they deserve it (normally), but it does make me wonder why the business plan is set up this way.

Let the arrows begin..........

The same people that complain about this practice would complain if dive operators increased their prices to provide DMs with a salary that could be considered a "living wage."

As evidence...see the people that complained about Bonaire dive operators including a $20 Nitrox fee to offset their additional electricity costs.

People complaining about $20 (for unlimited gas for a week) when they're dropping $1,500+ on a vacation.

How well do you think it would go over if they had to pay an extra $20+/day for their dives?
 
True, no matter how you slice it, people will complain....

Regarding the $20 Nitrox Fee. I was just in Bonaire last week. We dove with AB Dive and I asked them about the increase in Nitrox fee. They said Dive Friends is the only one doing this, they are not. They actually have changed over many of their air tanks to Nitrox thinking they are going to get a lot of Nitrox business.

The thing I'm a little upset about is the increase in Park Tax from $25 to $40 after Jan 1, 2019. Again, this is a money thing and many on the island relate this to the cruise ship people who are not paying it so they think they need to get it from somebody....the ones that actually go to the island and spend money. (this is a whole 'nother thread that is already up and running).
 
Unfortunately, the service industry in the United States distorted the concept of tipping to the point that it has nothing to do with the original notion of giving a little extra for an exceptional service. Why and how it happened I don't know, but it is what it is. In the US, tips are expected everywhere. Food deliveries, taxis, all kinds of contractors and all kinds of "free" service providers, like airport shuttles and valets. In most of the cafes where you stand in line to get a muffin and a cup of coffee you see either a tipping jar or a "tips" field on the electronic screen. On paper, tipping is optional. In reality, in many places you are likely to face open confrontation if you don't tip. It is not a healthy situation.

Not so in other places in the world. In Scandinavian countries that I visited tips are not expected at all. In most of Europe, restaurant waiters are expecting a tip of up to 10%, but hardly anyone else providing paid service will. In UK, a pub bartender could be offended if you tip them. In many countries, people would just round up the bill or leave coins on the table, which is totally fine. Nowhere else is the tipping situation as out of control as in the US. Consequently, places where large percentage of customers come from the US tend to have much higher expectations for tips than others.

Back to the question of tipping dive boat crews, compared to other services that we are expected to tip for, it doesn't seem unreasonable at all. After all, they often provide services that they are not technically paid to provide - such as helping divers with fins/cameras or with donning the gear. That happened on all boats I've been on, but if I'm ever on the boat where it is not happening and nothing except of the transportation and dive briefing is provided, I can see myself not tipping at all.
 
Just a few thoughts...

With Bonaire... the people diving air are actually subsidizing the people who dive nitrox. The cost of nitrox should be an up-charge from air, as it costs more $$ to make it. With that the dive ops that offer free nitrox should charge slightly more for it, and lower the cost of an air only package. That would cause a stir still, so marketing (and people renting air), just go with the flow and people diving nitrox get a small discount in Bonaire.

With tipping... I think it's pretty easy to just adjust my expectation of what a trip costs. It's not an unexpected cost, I just factor it in when saving for a trip... it takes all of 1 or 2 minutes of mental math. With that, if I can't afford the trip, with an appropriate tip then I don't think I'd do the trip... As a side note, the tip you leave also carries the weight for the people who don't tip. The staff needs to make 'X' to show back up the next day, and your tip encourages them to do so, even when the other people don't tip...

About tipping abroad. Just a quick story. My wife and I were in Paris this past year, eating at a nice restaurant, Le Gand Bain. The menu was in French only (not a complaint, we were in France, and that's fine with me). The server read the ENTIRE menu to us, and then covered a few items a second time with our questions. I felt she really didn't mind, telling us they do it regularly... at the end of that meal we left a HUGE tip. She actually chased us down just outside the door, trying to give us back our change... maybe she thought our math skills were on par with our French skills... I told her to enjoy they tip, and thanked her again. That was maybe the biggest tip I've ever left a server. I hope she did something fun with the tip, and remembers it the next time some foreign tourists need their menu read to them.
 
Scuba-74 got it pretty much spot on. As a European with a very different approach to tipping a lot of this discussion is alien to me. I suspect a lot of the reason you believe tipping is expected is simply because it's what you're used to at home. The fact that many resorts are owned by North Americans, and the fact that a large number of guests are also North American also helps perpetuate the "problem".

If I was on a liveaboard for a week and I built a [/SIZE]rapport with the crew I'd probably tip if, but I would never think to tip dive masters, boat captains, boat crew etc. if I was doing a few fun dives in a day, or over a few days - unless I'd done my research and I knew it was the cultural norm - for example if I was in Hawaii or if a bit of baksheesh was expected in the Red Sea.

In UK, a pub bartender could be offended if you tip them.

I'm not sure where you got this from. Tipping is absolutely not expected from a bartender in the UK, that's true - if you left £1 or so on the bar after a drink their default thought would be that you'd had too much to drink... but offering a tip would NEVER cause offence in a bar or a pub. It's quite common, especially if you're a regular to suggest that the bartender "keeps the change" or to offer up "one for yourself" (i.e. I want to pay for my drink(s) and also add a drink for the bartender to your bill).
 
Welcome to the board, PlasticSoup.

I'm not sure where you got this from. Tipping is absolutely not expected from a bartender in the UK, that's true - if you left £1 or so on the bar after a drink their default thought would be that you'd had too much to drink... but offering a tip would NEVER cause offence in a bar or a pub. It's quite common, especially if you're a regular to suggest that the bartender "keeps the change" or to offer up "one for yourself" (i.e. I want to pay for my drink(s) and also add a drink for the bartender to your bill).

An actual bartender in England got offended when I left some money for him, and told me to take my money with me. I later asked a few other bartenders and general consensus was pretty much what you wrote - none would expect a tip, most (usually males) would welcome "one for yourself" (if you are buying multiple drinks over a period of time), and some mentioned that they wouldn't want patrons to leave them loose change. That's why I said "a pub bartender could be offended".

Interestingly enough, a couple of years ago a British bartender at a pub in Boston got offended too, but that guy had issues. I'm still not entirely sure if he got offended by the fact that I left the money, by the sum I left, or simply by the way I looked at him :) On that note, tipping bartenders in the US, unlike tipping waiters, feels more like an art than a science to me. The sum I leave usually depends on the amount of time spend at a bar, number of drinks, and friendliness of a bartender, and it's definitely not just a % of your bill.
 
Bartering is the practice that confuses me. In some places you are expected to haggle over the prices for goods and services and if you don't haggle, then you are looked down upon and viewed as a sap.

And there are unwritten rules to bartering that are sometimes hard to understand. Once in Mexico I made an offer for an item and the woman peddler quietly told me "Oh no! That's too little, offer me $____" and so I offered what she wanted and she sold it to me. I never knew if I got a good deal or if I had been cheated, but I appreciated the coaching!

Even in places where bartering is common there are nuances. For instance, you might barter for an object or a service but not for a meal. It can be very confusing, I would prefer just to be told the price and then I can decide whether or not I can afford (or want) it.

A friend of mine and her husband are naturalized American citizens and she speaks English quite fluently but with an accent. She told me that once while she was traveling with her husband in a foreign country, she was bartering with a vendor for an item that she really wanted. Finally the woman said to her "I will let you have it for that price but only because you are not an American; if you were an American then I would charge you extra!" My friend but the item down and said "I am an American and you just lost a sale!" So there are unwritten rules for both sides in any exchange.

But I don't mind when someone adds a little something to a sale to sweeten the deal. Last night I was watching The Christmas Story and Ralphie's Dad was bartering over the price of a Christmas tree. The vendor offered to "Throw in the string and tie it to the roof of the car!" and that sealed the deal - but now I am wondering if Ralphie's Dad was expected to tip him?!
 
With all that said, part of me wonders why the industry rely's so much on tipping? I mean many boat dives, liveaboards, dive excursions are not cheap.
And many are cheap. There's a lot of money that goes into organizing a dive. When a customer's averaging 700 THB a tank, only 100-200 going to the DM might not seem fair, but then there's the boat, its fuel, captain, boatmaster, mechanics, gear amortization and mx, dive center land, building and hardware amortization and mx, gas fills themselves. And customers are sensitive enough to an extra 100 THB on a percentage basis, so some centers will double the DM's pay to get the best, others won't, and next to none will go over.

That said, tipping as well as bartering are very cultural. It's very entrenched in the US, while in other places it's just not something you do.

Most DMs that solely DM for a living will, in proper cultures, appreciate a tip because it's meaningful money on a DM's wage.



Why don't Dive Operators pay their employees a descent wage
Because the supply of dive pros far exceeds the demand for them. Westerners do it for the lifestyle, not the money. For the locals, it's usually a competitive wage already (not good, just reasonable).
 
I struggle with the tipping to some extent as well. I should clarify that I struggle with the ‘EXPECTED/MANDETORY’ tip. Just call it a fee and be done with it. I tip based on service alone, usually between 10-12 % for ‘showed up but were plesant’ 12-15% for ‘genuinely helpful and polite/informative’ and 18-20% for ‘all of the prior and went out of their way without being asked’ I tip cash and I tip the guys I feel really deserve it (DM/GUIDES/STAFF) and let them know I have no issue with them sharing it with anyone they feel they should. I tip at the end of the week. I struggle that a liveaboard boat of 24 divers tipping the ‘suggested’ 20% of trip price of up to 1000 USD for a 10 day trip isn’t a pisstake on a boat of 8 staff/crew (plus ‘non paid volunteer DMS/Cabin Hostess/crew, which is a whole other pile of BS IMO) ok, I appreciate this max $ nearly never happens, but even at 50% it’s looking at around $1500 per head. I worked bars/restos for years in the UK as a teen/college student. Minimum wage and never expected a tip. Yeah, the world is different now, but the lack of tipping ain’t what’s broken, so it shouldn’t be the fix.

I also tip a standard 20% at restaurants where I take my kids under 10. There will usually crap on the floor someone will have to clean.
I subtract the cost of wine and tax from any resto bill (without my kids) before calculating tip. I never tip on wine. I was at a nice dinner 3 weeks ago where a friend kindly picked up the bill. He basically tipped $180 for a som to open 3 bottles of wine...all of 15 secs of work on 3 bottles of 250% markup....no dice on that for me.
I always ask if the tip goes to the house or 100% to the staff/waitstaff. If it goes to the house, the tip is zero.
I don’t tip food delivery if it’s more than 10 mins late or cold. I never tip upfront before service.
I don’t tip anything food related where you don’t clean my plates/bring me food to a table or basically wait on me....

Oh, and anyone who calls anyone out on not tipping, you have no idea of their financial situation. There was a guy on a liveaboard with me who’s son paid for him to go on the trip as a retirement gift/bucket list and all of his gear was loner. He 100% didn’t have the cash to afford a $500 tip and wasn’t expecting it at the end of the trip. He Confided in me about it and was very stressed/felt ashamed. The guy from Memphis walking around the deck barking about how ‘anyone who didn’t tip at least 15% of trip price is a bum! Etc.’ Wasn’t helping things.
 
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