Tipping on Red Sea liveaboards

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tips aren't charity, government handouts are. you aren't entitled to have other people clean up after you, cook for you, and schlep your junk around.

Tips ARE charity if the amount is more than you would have tipped had you not felt those poor people in developing countries work so hard for so little.
 
I was in a hurry to get onto a plane when I made my last post. I am happy to discuss being generous to make other people’s lives better, but I would consider it highly inappropriate to introduce terms like ‘cheap’ into the conversation just because other people have different perspectives. That was what I was reacting to.
 
Tips ARE charity if the amount is more than you would have tipped had you not felt those poor people in developing countries work so hard for so little.

i tip based on what i feel is fair value of the service provided. but i also don't view the value of someone's labor to be based on where they live, work, or are born.
 
i tip based on what i feel is fair value of the service provided. but i also don't view the value of someone's labor to be based on where they live, work, or are born.

So we should pay enough in tips to ensure an Indonesian crew’s total compensation for their labor is the same as it would have been in the US? I don’t really feel like doubling the cost of my liveaboard by tipping 100%, even though that may be the fair value of the service if it were provided in the US. To put it another way, I don’t see the purpose of my tip as being to make up for prevailing wages in other parts of the world that seem low to me. That would be charity—different from tipping, in my opinion.
 
So we should pay enough in tips to ensure an Indonesian crew’s total compensation for their labor is the same as it would have been in the US? I don’t really feel like doubling the cost of my liveaboard by tipping 100%, even though that may be the fair value of the service if it were provided in the US. To put it another way, I don’t see the purpose of my tip as being to make up for prevailing wages in other parts of the world that seem low to me. That would be charity—different from tipping, in my opinion.

I think there is a middle ground. I tipped about 15 percent of the cost of my Egypt liveaboard trip. That was about double the tip amount suggested by the liveaboard itself. But the 15 percent was applied to a baseline that is one-third the cost of liveaboards pretty much anywhere else. By US standards, it’s still a very modest tip. And while I think it’s reasonable to take into account the lower wages of the country where you are diving (and not overtip to the point of charity), it’s also reasonable to take into account the much higher wages one makes in America (and not under tip to the point of being miserly).
 
So we should pay enough in tips to ensure an Indonesian crew’s total compensation for their labor is the same as it would have been in the US? I don’t really feel like doubling the cost of my liveaboard by tipping 100%, even though that may be the fair value of the service if it were provided in the US. To put it another way, I don’t see the purpose of my tip as being to make up for prevailing wages in other parts of the world that seem low to me. That would be charity—different from tipping, in my opinion.

No, I mean that I usually tip the same no matter where the crew are from and what area the boat travels. Some other posters have argued that tipping less is ok because the crew is local and living in a less developed country with lower prevailing wages.
 
I believe many people have a wrong perception about the reason behind the low prices for the Egyptian Red Sea liveaboards. Sure, the low wages play a part, but the most relevant bit is the sharp fall in tourist numbers since the so called revolution of 2011. The number of tourists/year is about half compared to the pre-2011 years and the big spenders are almost gone.
 
I've been to Dahab this January, at Blue Hole in the afternoon (2PM to 5) there was my small group plus a Polish couple doing freediving, plus 5 snorkelers. And that was it.
The Dahab hotels and diving centers survive at the moment on the Egyptian tourists that come during the summer months.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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