DIVE LOG DECEMBER 25 ISSUE 415

By Simon Pridmore I n many countries, the business of recreational diving is facing recruitment and retention challenges, to such an extent that it is asking divers to make a special effort to introduce their friends and colleagues to the sport - something most divers do anyway – blaming competition from other activities. Perhaps, instead, the industry should be looking more closely at itself to see if these issues could be resolved internally, by improving our services and procedures and striving for excellence instead of adequacy. The biggest problem we have is negligence. Recent instances of young trainee divers dying during basic training courses and divers getting left behind in the ocean by boat operators have made the headlines in mainstream news bulletins around the world. These incidents are disasters on multiple levels. Quite apart from revealing inexcusable incompetence within our sport, causing completely avoidable tragic loss of life, and leading to incalculable pain for the families and friends of the deceased, they are extremely damaging for the sport of scuba diving everywhere. To put it bluntly, it is likely that many people who might otherwise try scuba diving take one look at newspaper articles like this and think, “not for me!” Here are two examples of how we dive professionals indulge in what I call “negative marketing” – that is actions that tend to harm rather than promote the sport. Many people report that they tried diving once and found that “it wasn’t for them.” Now, obviously, Negative Marketing Self-sabotage by dive operators

diving is not for everyone, but let’s examine that statement more closely. These folk are saying that, at some point, they thought diving WAS for them, to the extent that were willing to pay for lessons or a Discover Scuba session, yet the instructor who delivered the course or experience managed to dissuade them from ever doing it again. Dive centres deliberately issue old sub-standard gear to beginners who try diving or take basic training, supposedly “to save money”, “to encourage the trainees to buy their own equipment after completing the class” or on the grounds that “the students know nothing, they won’t notice that they have poor equipment”. This way of thinking is about as wrong-headed as you can get. If a trainee diver does not enjoy their experience, and if they are not made as comfortable as possible, they will not pursue the sport. They will not become divers, they will not rent equipment again and they will certainly never buy anything. To end, here are two personal encounters that show our industry in a bad light, both involving dive companies that just did not seem to care about the dreadful service they offered.

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DIVE LOG Australasia #415 December‘ 25

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