Which countries steal most of diving tourism?

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

I am writing a paper which has forced me to think which countries of the world are stealing most of the worlds diving tourism? Are there any official figures or is there any way to calculate this?

In the absence of any official figures, peoples personal opinions are also welcome ... as long as some thought has gone into them

Thanks in advance -

 

[fisheater]

"Stealing?"

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Not in the literal sense.

stealing = taking

 

[Hank49]

Maybe try a survey here.
What countries have you dived in?

 

[theduckguru]

I am writing a paper which has forced me to think which countries of the world are stealing most of the worlds diving tourism? Are there any official figures or is there any way to calculate this?

In the absence of any official figures, peoples personal opinions are also welcome ... as long as some thought has gone into them

Thanks in advance -

Define scuba tourism? Is it a min distance, only when a multi nite stay is required, or only international? The USA probably has the largest volume.

 

[Insta-Gator]

Contact the various Department of Tourism and/or Immigration offices at the usual suspect locations.

 

[Rhone Man]

That would be a very hard survey to conduct. Off the top of my head I would say that what you are probably looking for is revenues, rather than numbers of divers or numbers of dives. Judged that way, someone doing a couple of two tanks dives in Cayman may contribute more financially to the Caymanian dive industry than someone who does a weeks' worth of shore diving in Bonaire. The picture gets a bit confused when you look at liveboards (especially liveboards that rotate through more than one country) and diving resorts - what is diving revenue and what is non-diving revenue?

I suspect one could try and dice it up lots of different ways, but probably you'll end up coming back to my standard college answer: fuctifino.

EDIT: One crude measure that might work reasonably well is looking at the number of dive professionals working in each country. Of course, a number of places with high numbers of "home" divers (like the UK and the US) would appear like tourist hotspots, but it might give a broad picture. There are probably four or five times as many dive professionals working in Cayman as there are in BVI - that is probably reflective or our relative shares of the dive tourism industry.

 

[dkktsunami]

The use of the world "stealing" makes it appear that you have an agenda. What is the exact thesis of your paper?

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Define scuba tourism? Is it a min distance, only when a multi nite stay is required, or only international? The USA probably has the largest volume.

Purely international. When you leave your country for diving which country are you leaving and where are you headed.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Here is the agenda:

Just like shark researchers "tag" sharks and track them from a satellite, if all dive tourists were "tagged" and observed from a satellite would there by any systematic pattern to this international dive tourism?

At this point I am more interested in who you are and where you go than how much you spend once you get there or how many people work as instructors because you go there. That would be useful too but I have not gotten to that part yet.