DIVE LOG AUSTRALASIA FEB 2026

The Little Shop of Horrors

by David Strike

Going diving is heaps more fun than monitoring the marketing pages of the business press, but if some diving operators hope to keep their heads above water then they may need to catch up on their reading.

David Strike. January 2026

to master the underwater hand signals for saying, “ I’m cold! I have serious doubts about the quality of your rental equipment and this is the sixth time we have swum past this abandoned supermarket trolley! When will I be exposed to the fun, the excitement and the exotic marine life as promised in the glossy promotional brochure that you handed to me when I first enquired about diving?”) There are lots of reasons for this attitude. But the most common is that a handful of instructors and dive shop owners still regard diving as an alternative lifestyle rather than a business. Oblivious to the need for profit and customer service, their shop premises usually reflect a poverty of thought and pocket that keeps the business constantly teetering on the brink of financial ruin. Not that their stores are ever empty. Like ‘R Gang’s Klub-house’ , there’s usually at least half-a-dozen ‘dive-shop groupies’ with names like “Buggalugs” and “Zombie”, always hanging around drinking coffee, telling implausible tales about near-death underwater experiences and loudly advising would be customers that the regulator they were thinking of buying is $17.56 cents cheaper at a shop on the other side of town.

The Little Shop of Horrors

Going diving is heaps more fun than monitoring the marketing pages of the business press, but if some diving operators hope to keep their heads above water then they may need to catch up on their reading. Obsessed with teaching diving - probably because it’s the only aspect of the diving business that they actually understand - a few instructors and dive store owners continue to regard the certification process as an end in itself rather than the first step in building long term customer relationships. Pitching diving against the instant gratification culture of fast foods and bungy jumping, they make no attempt to sell and promote it as a unique, equipment intensive, adventure activity with rewards that more than repay the time spent in learning. Opting instead for the line of least resistance they heavily discount the price of courses and place a continuing reliance on slogans like, “Learning to dive has never been easier!” (A strange claim when we all know that it takes at least four days just

30

DIVE LOG Australasia #416 February ‘26

www.divelog.net.au