- Messages
- 23
- Reaction score
- 27
- # of dives
Part 2 of 2
Dive training is a product that has a significant cost associated with delivering it to the customer. The real cost to train an individual to become a competent and safe scuba diver, vastly exceeds todays market price for training, and most in the industry completely ignore the "hidden cost" associated with the potantial liability risk in offering training. The fault of this disconnect, lies directly at the feet of the dive training agencies that have perpetuated the hobbyist-trade mentality in their policies and retailer support structure.
Dive training itself should be treated as a product, and should carry with it a manufacturers suggested minimum retail price. Dive training after all, is supposed to carry with it Brand Value. For years, I took great pride in the fact that my training agency, NAUI, held the reputation of having by far the highest training standards in the industry. Not just ANYONE, could be a NAUI instructor in those days. Today however, there is no real brand value in any training agency. They have all degenerated equally in terms of quality and standards, to the detriment of all
In much the same way that high-end sports equipment manufacturers (such as Patagonia, Mountain Hardwear, etc.), have certain conditions of compliance for dealers in order to retain their dealership status (including minimums sales price discounts allowed); dive training agencies should long ago have imposed the same minimum pricing standards on the dive industry retailers and independents who sell training under those brands. This is in fact the best way to protect brand value, whether selling a product, or service. Instead, training agencies have year after year done the exact opposite, and have systematically eroded the quality requirements for dive training, dumbed-down the training standards, lowered the certification age to 10 under pressure from the dive-travel segment of the industry, and have now even taken the step to offer on-line training that doesnt even require any instructor for the academic portion of the course.
These steps constitute one big mistake after another, and yet the respective heads (talking heads would be more appropriate) of the industrys training agencies still believe that they are innovating ways to grow the industry. They could not be more wrong.
If dive training courses were priced in accordance with the actual cost to deliver them, an entry-level scuba course in the US should cost at least $ 600 or more per student, and should consist of the content and practical standards that used to be provided more than a decade ago, unlike today where a few hours in a pool over a weekend constitutes an open-water certification course. In fact, the average price of a complete scuba course from a reputable institution or dive shop back in 1980 was about $200. Adjusted for inflation to today, that would be $ 625. I challenge anyone to find just one dive retailer in America today who has priced a basic scuba course at $ 625. There is not one.
Today, there is a rash of dive retailers across the USA who are closing their doors and going out of business. I have interviewed dozens of the owners of these shops and virtually all of them attribute their demise to the same things. Its the economy, or its the financial crisis, or its the price of gas, etc. But not one of them attributes the demise of their business, to having underpriced their products, including their training services. Not one attributes their failure, to having tried to operate under a defective industry model. They falsely believe that if they had charged a reasonable price for the courses they offered that they wouldnt get any students. Perhaps this is Darwin at work, and they should be put out of business. Any instructor or retailer, willing to give away for free, the intellectual property, physical demands, and liability risk assumption, associated with providing a dive training course, doesnt deserve to compete in this industry to begin with.
I have news for you out there in the dive industry; making a bigger pie (i.e. growing the market) is not constituted in stretching and flattening out the existing pie until is paper thin. The means by which the dive training agencies have attempted to grow their market has been unhealthy in many respects, not the least of which is economic. The fallout from that is putting hundreds of dive retailers across the country out of business.
The competency standards for entry-level certified divers today is a joke, and those for leadership level training have diminished substantially as well. Last year, I found myself on a dive charter to the wreck Oriskany, off Pensacola with a newly minted Divemaster aboard our charter. This divemaster had first learned to dive only 6 months before, and had logged only 90 dives. On his first dive as acting divemaster, he was charged with guiding a young 15 year-old girl, the daughter of one of the other divers aboard, since she was newly certified and the least experienced aboard. This divemaster, who was an unpaid apprentice for the dive shop, started his dive with an Aluminum 80, while the 15 year old girl, half his size, was given a 100 cu ft steel cylinder. The dive ended with the divemaster actually running out of air and having to share air with his student at the safety stop. She commented upon re-boarding the boat; that she had no idea what was going on, when the divemaster reached for her octopus regulator and started breathing from it. This divemaster put both himself, and his undertrained student at substantial risk, on a wreck sitting in 220 feet of water, more than 22 miles from shore. Imagine if that young client had been just a 10-year old. Imagine that young child were YOUR 10-year old.
This story is not a solitary one.
The idea to certify 10-year olds to scuba dive, came about in large part due to pressure from owners of live-aboard fleets like Wayne Hasson of the aggressor fleet; who for years pressured PADI and the other training agencies to lower the certification age in an effort to expand the dive-travel market to larger families with young children, rather than just couples. Their justification came from comparing the scuba industry, to the recreational snow-skiing industry; ignoring the fact that making a simple error on a ski slope usually results in few bruises or a broken bone at worst; while making a simple error underwater on scuba gear can cost someone their life. This too has been one of the most disastrous policies enacted by the dive training agencies both economically, as well as in terms of real safety and professionalism. The consequent increase in cost of instructor liability insurance is something no one has even mentioned or addressed in the industry trade journals.
Fundamentally, the dive industry has consistently and systematically self-destructed any means by which a small business owner or independent instructor can expect to be paid a reasonable price for their training services. In 30 years, these people have still not learned anything about economics. This is why Im fed-up, and this is why I quit.
Dive training is a product that has a significant cost associated with delivering it to the customer. The real cost to train an individual to become a competent and safe scuba diver, vastly exceeds todays market price for training, and most in the industry completely ignore the "hidden cost" associated with the potantial liability risk in offering training. The fault of this disconnect, lies directly at the feet of the dive training agencies that have perpetuated the hobbyist-trade mentality in their policies and retailer support structure.
Dive training itself should be treated as a product, and should carry with it a manufacturers suggested minimum retail price. Dive training after all, is supposed to carry with it Brand Value. For years, I took great pride in the fact that my training agency, NAUI, held the reputation of having by far the highest training standards in the industry. Not just ANYONE, could be a NAUI instructor in those days. Today however, there is no real brand value in any training agency. They have all degenerated equally in terms of quality and standards, to the detriment of all
In much the same way that high-end sports equipment manufacturers (such as Patagonia, Mountain Hardwear, etc.), have certain conditions of compliance for dealers in order to retain their dealership status (including minimums sales price discounts allowed); dive training agencies should long ago have imposed the same minimum pricing standards on the dive industry retailers and independents who sell training under those brands. This is in fact the best way to protect brand value, whether selling a product, or service. Instead, training agencies have year after year done the exact opposite, and have systematically eroded the quality requirements for dive training, dumbed-down the training standards, lowered the certification age to 10 under pressure from the dive-travel segment of the industry, and have now even taken the step to offer on-line training that doesnt even require any instructor for the academic portion of the course.
These steps constitute one big mistake after another, and yet the respective heads (talking heads would be more appropriate) of the industrys training agencies still believe that they are innovating ways to grow the industry. They could not be more wrong.
If dive training courses were priced in accordance with the actual cost to deliver them, an entry-level scuba course in the US should cost at least $ 600 or more per student, and should consist of the content and practical standards that used to be provided more than a decade ago, unlike today where a few hours in a pool over a weekend constitutes an open-water certification course. In fact, the average price of a complete scuba course from a reputable institution or dive shop back in 1980 was about $200. Adjusted for inflation to today, that would be $ 625. I challenge anyone to find just one dive retailer in America today who has priced a basic scuba course at $ 625. There is not one.
Today, there is a rash of dive retailers across the USA who are closing their doors and going out of business. I have interviewed dozens of the owners of these shops and virtually all of them attribute their demise to the same things. Its the economy, or its the financial crisis, or its the price of gas, etc. But not one of them attributes the demise of their business, to having underpriced their products, including their training services. Not one attributes their failure, to having tried to operate under a defective industry model. They falsely believe that if they had charged a reasonable price for the courses they offered that they wouldnt get any students. Perhaps this is Darwin at work, and they should be put out of business. Any instructor or retailer, willing to give away for free, the intellectual property, physical demands, and liability risk assumption, associated with providing a dive training course, doesnt deserve to compete in this industry to begin with.
I have news for you out there in the dive industry; making a bigger pie (i.e. growing the market) is not constituted in stretching and flattening out the existing pie until is paper thin. The means by which the dive training agencies have attempted to grow their market has been unhealthy in many respects, not the least of which is economic. The fallout from that is putting hundreds of dive retailers across the country out of business.
The competency standards for entry-level certified divers today is a joke, and those for leadership level training have diminished substantially as well. Last year, I found myself on a dive charter to the wreck Oriskany, off Pensacola with a newly minted Divemaster aboard our charter. This divemaster had first learned to dive only 6 months before, and had logged only 90 dives. On his first dive as acting divemaster, he was charged with guiding a young 15 year-old girl, the daughter of one of the other divers aboard, since she was newly certified and the least experienced aboard. This divemaster, who was an unpaid apprentice for the dive shop, started his dive with an Aluminum 80, while the 15 year old girl, half his size, was given a 100 cu ft steel cylinder. The dive ended with the divemaster actually running out of air and having to share air with his student at the safety stop. She commented upon re-boarding the boat; that she had no idea what was going on, when the divemaster reached for her octopus regulator and started breathing from it. This divemaster put both himself, and his undertrained student at substantial risk, on a wreck sitting in 220 feet of water, more than 22 miles from shore. Imagine if that young client had been just a 10-year old. Imagine that young child were YOUR 10-year old.
This story is not a solitary one.
The idea to certify 10-year olds to scuba dive, came about in large part due to pressure from owners of live-aboard fleets like Wayne Hasson of the aggressor fleet; who for years pressured PADI and the other training agencies to lower the certification age in an effort to expand the dive-travel market to larger families with young children, rather than just couples. Their justification came from comparing the scuba industry, to the recreational snow-skiing industry; ignoring the fact that making a simple error on a ski slope usually results in few bruises or a broken bone at worst; while making a simple error underwater on scuba gear can cost someone their life. This too has been one of the most disastrous policies enacted by the dive training agencies both economically, as well as in terms of real safety and professionalism. The consequent increase in cost of instructor liability insurance is something no one has even mentioned or addressed in the industry trade journals.
Fundamentally, the dive industry has consistently and systematically self-destructed any means by which a small business owner or independent instructor can expect to be paid a reasonable price for their training services. In 30 years, these people have still not learned anything about economics. This is why Im fed-up, and this is why I quit.