Discussion of How to get/keep people diving

[cerich]

To discuss ideas

 

[Thalassamania]

Most of the people whom I meet who say, "I used to dive, but I stopped," when gently pressed will volunteer that they never really felt comfortable underwater, even though they may have had a good time on the few dives that they made. Solve that problem and many more divers will be retained.

 

[Gilldiver]

Why do divers drop out? I don’t know but for the last 30 years I have figured that most new divers will be out by 3 years with close to 90% inactive between 5 and 7 years. Only 1-2% seem to make it to 10 year being active, but if they make it to 10, they will most likely make it to 30.

This is a fairly standard rant of mine about people diving and the very high drop out rate from diving:

The new diver is a very excited diver and everything is new. But new is for only a short time. Some divers become the tourist diver to whom diving is what they do on a yearly island vacation between breakfast and 3 sets of tennis or 18 holes. For them, that is all they need and that is fine all by itself. After all the agencies define an active diver as these divers – 5 dives per year.

But for many, after a while, just diving doesn’t do it anymore. Their diving lacks a purpose. That means that the diving has never become something that is done to do something else that they want to do underwater.

That something can be photograph, marine sciences of any number of types, it could be exploration of caves or wrecks, or both. But there will come a day when you just don’t want to dive for the sake of diving.

For me it was wrecks, then it became the history of the wrecks and the research and documentation of them. More recently I have got a digital camera which has me going back to the wrecks to get the photos I never got with the old Nikonos rigs. At the same time I have got a vintage diving bug and between the two diving has become much more fun again.

So, how do we make diving fun for that 2-5 year range when we loose the majority of divers?

 

[Scott L]

Most of the people whom I meet who say, "I used to dive, but I stopped," when gently pressed will volunteer that they never really felt comfortable underwater, even though they may have had a good time on the few dives that they made. Solve that problem and many more divers will be retained.

You hit the nail on the head as I encounter the same response along with ear equalization issues offered as excuses. The first pucker moment and that's the end of their diving carreer.

 

[gcbryan]

Here in the PNW I think teaching people to dive in drysuits from the beginning goes a long way towards keeping them in diving locally at least for the near term.

Some people get certified to go on a warm water vacation and do that by diving in a wetsuit for certification dives in 50 degree or less water. Combine that with the fact that they don't see much underwater on the training dives and many just don't see the need to dive locally and therefore frequently.

Certify everyone in drysuits and include at least one interesting dive during the certification process and more people will hang around.

As an aside, as regards the manufacturers...do everything you can to keep a customer. Don't be shortsighted. Cerich read my post about flooding 2 dive computers on consecutive days a few years ago and as a manufacturers rep said to contact him and the end result was that my two computers were replaced at no charge. Both were outside of the warranty. I wasn't even posting looking for redress. I was posting looking for a computer with a better battery system.

However, consider how happy is a diver going to be with two (relatively new) computers that flooded simply as a result of changing the battery. Goodwill is sometimes lacking in the dive industry especially when times are tight but "nickel and diming" customers isn't in the industries long term interest.

If divers had more experiences with the industry like I had with Cerich then more divers might have a different attitude about the industry.

 

[mikemill]

Can we merge this thread with http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...e-keep-divers-diving-after-certification.html ?

But just in case:

As someone who just returned (this past January) after a 9 year break I suppose I'm in a position to comment on this.

The number 1 thing that can be done is to make it easier for divers to find buddies and local dive spots. I didn't dive for all those years because I wasn't interested. I didn't dive because I didn't want to spend the time/energy find people to dive with and where to dive.

 

[Scott L]

Here in the PNW I think teaching people to dive in drysuits from the beginning goes a long way towards keeping them in diving locally at least for the near term.

Some people get certified to go on a warm water vacation and do that by diving in a wetsuit for certification dives in 50 degree or less water. Combine that with the fact that they don't see much underwater on the training dives and many just don't see the need to dive locally and therefore frequently.

Certify everyone in drysuits and include at least one interesting dive during the certification process and more people will hang around.

As an aside, as regards the manufacturers...do everything you can to keep a customer. Don't be shortsighted. Cerich read my post about flooding 2 dive computers on consecutive days a few years ago and as a manufacturers rep said to contact him and the end result was that my two computers were replaced at no charge. Both were outside of the warranty. I wasn't even posting looking for redress. I was posting looking for a computer with a better battery system.

However, consider how happy is a diver going to be with two (relatively new) computers that flooded simply as a result of changing the battery. Goodwill is sometimes lacking in the dive industry especially when times are tight but "nickel and diming" customers isn't in the industries long term interest.

If divers had more experiences with the industry like I had with Cerich then more divers might have a different attitude about the industry.

I totally agree. Case in point, you take a two year break with your diving to rear a child and your ScubaPro lifetime parts warrantee is out the window. Short sighted?

 

[Scott L]

Can we merge this thread with http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...e-keep-divers-diving-after-certification.html ?

But just in case:

With DEMA upon us there is about 6-8 concurrent threads...

 

[Lee Taylor]

I would like to see dive boats do exploratory dives on virgin sites. Most dive sites have more traffic than Grand Central Station. Dropping down on a virgin site would be extremely interesting to me.

 

[sea nmf]

Sorry if this was asked in the other thread, but why do we care if people continue to dive after certification? From a rec diver persepctive, is it to get a larger buddy pool? Or to save LDS?

Please share why you care or why the question is even being asked.