Why can't you make a living as an Instructor?

[Centrals]

Location and location.
I wonder how many OW divers in countries eg. Iceland, Scandinavian countries and UK would not do a dry suit course on top of their initial training? Probably quite a lot.

 

[ofg-1]

Well, there is the expectation that one doesn't have to sell one's blood to have enough to eat.

One of my buddies was a "dirtbag climber" (his words) and he'd eat off people's plates at restaurants after they left.

Funny you mention that. I have a friend who was a treasure diver on one of Mel Fisher's boats back in the 70's. He would go to Pizza Hut, order an ice tea and sit and sip it until someone left and did not finish their pizza. He went and picked it up for dinner. He is now a partner in a commercial diving school.

Ramen is cheap, and you can fill up on it.

 

[scubaozy]

... from wikipedia:
"In 2019, PADI reported it had a membership of over 137,000 professional members and 6,600 dive centers, and had awarded more than 27,000,000 diving certifications internationally."
Lets assume they charged 50usd per cert, that would make 1.3b. Lets assume membership fee is 200usd, it will make less than 30m, so, not hard to figure out where the money is made. I believe travel biz is pretty new, I wonder what the revenue is but not hard to guess looking at what intermediaries like booking.com charges, it is probably quite significant as well.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

... from wikipedia:
"In 2019, PADI reported it had a membership of over 137,000 professional members and 6,600 dive centers, and had awarded more than 27,000,000 diving certifications internationally."
Lets assume they charged 50usd per cert, that would make 1.3b. Lets assume membership fee is 200usd, it will make less than 30m, so, not hard to figure out where the money is made. I believe travel biz is pretty new, I wonder what the revenue is but not hard to guess looking at what intermediaries like booking.com charges, it is probably quite significant as well.

Well, good for them. It’s in the spirit of capitalism and creating a profitable business.

 

[Jcp2]

The dive guides/instructors that I met in Florida all were younger people without a family who became instructors as they traveled the Caribbean/Southeast Asia, happy to be doing what they were doing for the money that they made, all understanding that this was a temporary thing that they could do while young, single, and healthy. Their income needs and wants are certainly much less than a person with a spouse and two kids who wants to live in a house in a decent school district. Hard to compete.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

The dive guides/instructors that I met in Florida all were younger people without a family who became instructors as they traveled the Caribbean/Southeast Asia, happy to be doing what they were doing for the money that they made, all understanding that this was a temporary thing that they could do while young, single, and healthy. Their income needs and wants are certainly much less than a person with a spouse and two kids who wants to live in a house in a decent school district. Hard to compete.

the industry is optimized for gap year kids. I can't think of a better way to spend a year before going back to reality/uni.

 

[bfw]

Sure, at my last OW 15 year reunion, we all checked in with each other and compared our dive training history. Aside from that, I also make it a point to keep track of of my entire OW cohort. Judy, for one, needs to get out diving more.

I am sure this observation of yours is as solidly backed as everything else you've posted here.

My OW class was through a University Phys. Ed. department, and those in the class were classmates of mine for 4 years after that. None of them pursued further dive training in that time.

In 20 years, I worked with hundreds of OW students and kept in touch with a lot of them. 80% of them continued to dive with our shop, but did not take additional classes.

 

[bfw]

Location and location.
I wonder how many OW divers in countries eg. Iceland, Scandinavian countries and UK would not do a dry suit course on top of their initial training? Probably quite a lot.

In such places, dry suit training is part of OW.

Also, a huge number of divers from cold climates never dive locally - they do their OW cert dives on a trip to the tropics either with the shop or via referral form, and if they keep diving, they travel toward the equator to do so.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

In such places, dry suit training is part of OW.

Not always. We have waters similar to the UK. I see so many open water students in 7 mils suffering as they won't pay for the upgrade. Some shops only provide a dry suit option and they have happier customers.

 

[Degenerate]

Not always. We have waters similar to the UK. I see so many open water students in 7 mils suffering as they won't pay for the upgrade. Some shops only provide a dry suit option and they have happier customers.

A very large majority of OW classes here in Sweden will be done with wetsuits.
It's hard to make money doing OW classes here as it is and the added expense of stocking a ton of rental drysuits to fit students is financial suicide for the majority of dive shops.
I'm glad I was able to do OW/AOW with a drysuit here years ago, but it is DEFINITELY not the norm.

Most people who go on to take further classes end up in a drysuit though, it's a must have here unless you want to limit your diving to the summer months only.