Coronavirus Impact on Local Dive Shops

[Darcy Kieran]

What impact of the coronavirus pandemic are you witnessing on your local dive shop?

Seen any dive shop with brilliant ideas to keep afloat?

Scuba Diving, The Dive Industry & The Coronavirus - Scubanomics

 

[Marie13]

This thread is already ongoing

Corona virus and impact on the dive industry

 

[Industry Outsider]

Corona has not impacted the dive industry. Just Governments!

 

[Bigbella]

The local shop that I patronize has just reopened, though remains quite limited in its current services. Classes, are off the schedule; trips are toast for the time being. Private tours of local sites, airfills, and some gear rentals / repairs are about the only service available. How they are able to cover their current overhead, is a mystery.

Whether these shops can survive in the long run, is questionsble, without continued classes and travel . . .

 

[tridacna]

Reviving an old thread.

I've counted over 5 dive shops that have gone out of business in NJ in the past year or so. Covid-19 pushed some over the edge. I think that another couple will fall in the next year. I've spoken to some of the sales reps and business is not being taken up by the existing stores.

Really bad news. How's things in the rest of the country?

 

[Saniflush]

I am not sure that I have the best gauge for how things are in the SE due to the shop I teach out of is a part time shop. You could almost (and I have) call it a boutique shop. We have always had small classes that very rarely exceed 4 people and a lot of times are 1-2. All of that being said upfront, we have seen the floodgates open with new students over the last 3 months. We have(had) more students in the last three months than we have had in the same time period or same time of year, by a wide margin. (about double)
We are not really sure what to attribute it to other than folks are tired of being indoors and still have a lot of their entertainment dollars that would have otherwise been spent on travel and other activities.

 

[Marie13]

I know of two shops that have closed this year. SeaLions in suburban Chicago and Port Deco Divers in Port Washington, WI.

I’m told SeaLions had been around for a while. Port Deco Divers was maybe 4-5 years old. They even had a little boat for Lake Michigan wreck diving.

 

[wnissen]

I am not sure that I have the best gauge for how things are in the SE due to the shop I teach out of is a part time shop. You could almost (and I have) call it a boutique shop. We have always had small classes that very rarely exceed 4 people and a lot of times are 1-2. All of that being said upfront, we have seen the floodgates open with new students over the last 3 months. We have(had) more students in the last three months than we have had in the same time period or same time of year, by a wide margin. (about double)
We are not really sure what to attribute it to other than folks are tired of being indoors and still have a lot of their entertainment dollars that would have otherwise been spent on travel and other activities.

I'm sure the impact is very uneven. I would normally never pay the extra money for a private dive tour, but lately that is my preference. So a boutique shop is probably well positioned.

Similarly, places with local cold water diving are probably doing pretty well. Suddenly the local quarry seems more interesting than risking infection.

I feel really sorry for the big shops in resort destinations. Who is going to travel somewhere far away and get on a boat with 30 other divers? (I am not making a political point here, this impact would be profound regardless of government restrictions.) The folks who post on Scubaboard are not typically the ones on those boats, but I'm sure it constitutes the majority of the industry.

 

[Marie13]

The owner of the local “warm water shop” (they do very little local diving aside from training at the local quarry) I get fills at told me last week that usually they are done with local check out dives in September. They’ve had a larger number of students and more interest so they’re going to be at the quarry in October. Owner told me this while complaining about what the water/air temps will be. I just laughed. He knows I’m weird in preferring cold water/weather.

@wnissen

Judging from the new faces fun diving at the local quarry and the number of people asking for buddies (while saying they usually dive tropical destinations) on local FB groups, yes, lots more people diving locally than usual.

 

[Lostdiver71]

I have spoken to several shops here in SouthEast Florida and they told me that they are actually doing more business than usual. I can only assume that the dive boats are hurting because they are only allowed to operate at partial capacity, although they seem to be booked 7 days a week.