Do Europeans tip DMs?

[vladimir]

Tipping is a British practice where the cost of the service has a conditional element based on how well I am impressed with your service. Being a British practice is why it is also a generally univerisial practice.

Do you mean "was a British practice"? Yes, it seems so. From the NYTimes:

While the precise origin of tipping is uncertain, it is commonly traced to Tudor England, according to “Tipping,” Kerry Segrave’s history of the custom.

The article continues:

Tipping was imported from Europe, and when it arrived in America, it met with impassioned and organized opposition.

Tipping began as an aristocratic practice, a sprinkle of change for social inferiors, and it quickly spread among the upper classes of Europe....
In the mid-1800s, after leaving the Bell Inn of Gloucester, the Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle complained: “The dirty scrub of a waiter grumbled about his allowance, which I reckoned liberal. I added sixpence to it, and [he] produced a bow which I was near rewarding with a kick.”

After the Civil War, wealthy Americans began traveling to Europe in significant numbers, and they brought the tip home with them to demonstrate their worldliness. But the United States, unlike Europe, had no aristocratic tradition, and as tipping spread — like “evil insects and weeds,” The New York Times claimed in 1897 — many thought it was antithetical to American democratic ideals. “Tipping, and the aristocratic idea it exemplifies, is what we left Europe to escape,” William Scott wrote in his 1916 anti-tipping screed, “The Itching Palm.” One periodical of the same era deplored tipping for creating a class of workers who relied on “fawning for favors.”

 

[abu]

We - my dive group - always tip after a liveaboard trip. We also tip the divemasters we've had during a stay at a resort.
In Spain we invite him/her/them to join us for a drink or a meal if the occasion arises.

 

[tacky]

I tip the Egyptian divemasters if they do good work as I know they apreciate it. But I would be somewhat hestitant to tip europeans as I don't know how it would be perceived. Would never tip in at home in Norway.

 

[Quero]

I think that tipping in general is a very American idea. Most other places just don't do it, and it can create confusion to the person being tipped.

Nah. There's no confusion on the part of dive guides being tipped given that their work is the sort of personalized service people tip for--the receiver of the tip simply accepts whatever is offered and shrugs if nothing is offered by some customers. Saying that tipping makes the person being tipped feel somehow uncomfortable is generally an excuse a non-tipper uses to justify not tipping. This perspective comes from years of living and working in a busy tourist island environment where we see divers from all over the world arriving with their varied tipping habits.

For people being tipped, money is always preferred to a thank-you beer, which, in the end, does nothing to help pay the bills, not to mention that most DMs just want to go home to their families after a long day rather than sit around with customers drinking beer (it's just a continuation of the work day, believe it or not). DMing is not a highly paid job, and monetary tips are always appreciated.

When it comes to local practice, what locals do when dealing with each other and what the norms for visitors are may be quite different. For example, here in Thailand, we don't have a tipping culture when locals are dealing with locals in day-to-day pursuits--we just round up (e.g., at a restaurant) or give a small token (e.g., to the girl who washes the windshield at the gas station). But for tourist activities that have hired guides who interact directly with the customers, the assumption when taking a job as a guide is that part of the income will be from tips.

We all know that some nationality groups tend to be tight-fisted and others are generous. While our dive guides treat everyone nicely and try to provide a fun day out regardless of the nationality of the customer, they will go the extra distance for a customer whom they think will show some appreciation in the form of a nice tip. Guess which nationality groups we put our biggest smiles on for when the customers board the boats?

 

[Quero]

In Singapore and Hong Kong a 10% service charge is always added to the restaurant bill. It is not a tip--it is not optional--and tipping is not customary outside of restaurants either. You will see the 10% added in other parts of Southeast Asia as well, like Thailand and Indonesia (+21% there, including tax)

I can only speak in relation to Thailand and Malaysia, but service charges are added only to hotel bills at certain establishments, not even all of them, though occupancy taxes and VAT are standard additions. There is no standard 10% service charge added to restaurant bills (at least at the places I eat), and certainly there is NEVER a service charge added to a dive charter bill, so in terms of tipping DMs, there's no guaranteed 10% going there.

 

[vladimir]

I can only speak in relation to Thailand and Malaysia, but service charges are added only to hotel bills at certain establishments, not even all of them, though occupancy taxes and VAT are standard additions. There is no standard 10% service charge added to restaurant bills (at least at the places I eat), and certainly there is NEVER a service charge added to a dive charter bill, so in terms of tipping DMs, there's no guaranteed 10% going there.

Thanks Quero, local knowledge is always more reliable than the recollection of an occasional visitor. I have never seen a service charge added to a dive charter bill anywhere. It was not my best exposition, but I was using restaurants as an indication of the tipping culture in general, and I did try to distinguish between Singapore and Hong Kong, on one hand,

In Singapore and Hong Kong a 10% service charge is always* added to the restaurant bill.

and Thailand on the other, where I said

You will see the 10% added in....but it seems to correlate to how many Americans frequent the establishment.

So in Phuket, a place like Baan Rim Pa, for example, tacks on the 10%.

As for Malaysia, I said

Tipping in....Malaysia is unusual.

Again, using restaurants as an example of the the tipping culture in general, as is clear from the later comments about bellhops and taxis.

It is reasonable, in my opinion, to try to divine what is correct based on the wider tipping culture to some degree, particularly when discussion of the specific case of divemaster tipping attracts so many partisans.

* Actually, not always. A friend of mine is a restaurateur in Singapore and tried the American style of tipping with an eye towards motivating better service: no surprise, Singaporeans chose to tip 0% almost always, as you would expect in a non-tipping culture.

 

[buddyoscar]

Im from the US. would always ckeck to see how tip is percived .would say tips in north and south america are always apprciated the averge yearly wage for a honduran is around 1200.00 a year the last boat i was on the dm made about 12.00 bucks a week we were told that to directly tip the capt and dm they were both awsome and got good tips was on a boat out of chicago the only tip he got was a letter as i only tip for good service. i dont buy this 10 ore 15% bs if i tip its from my heart and what is desearved there seems to be a lot of just average work going on these days i feel that it is important to let people know when there doing great and ignore the losers let them sit on the side lines wandering what they did wrong!

 

[mjatkins]

I agree with Quero, that a beer or a meal after a dive is not the best way to go. Usually if I am still at the shop after a dive it is because I am still working, so a beer is not appropriate, and I prefer to eat my dinner at home with my wife like most professionals. If I am finished work though, I have been known to accept a quick beer, But I am usually just trying to get home. In Cozumel, where I work, it is normal that divers tip the divemasters. Some folks don't, and some do but have a very unrealistic view of what the tip should be. ie. in a place like this $1 is not "a fortune to these people". At our shop we split all tips 50/50 with the boat captain. We take care of getting your gear ready and set up, take you to the site (diver's choice for sites), lead you on the dive, carry extra weight if needed, serve you water, muffins, and fruit on the SI, watch out for your safety, then unload the gear and tanks at the end, and routinely do quick fixes and repairs on guest's gear. I would say the average is $10 per person for a 2 tank trip..

And as has been said, we don't feel uncomfortable taking the tips, any more than CEOs feel uncomfortable taking bonuses. They are greatly appreciated.

 

[Fionab]

Funny you'd ask that. Last year I was on a boat with a couple from England. (Yeah, I know, England isn't part of Europe.).

Really ? Fantastic I have been driving for the past 4 hours I must have missed us leaving the EU.

Yes you are right we are apparently crap tippers and following a trip to the Galapagos in 2007 I won't go on another trip like that again. 16 of us from the UK (part of Europe) were contacted and told if we didn't pay a 10% tip upfront then we would have our trip cancelled and they would fill the boat with high tipping Americans, we were basically held to ransom, 2 couples dropped out and we filled their places.

I'll tell you this for a fact the service we got from the main dive guide was very substandard, he spent the entire 10 days hidden away preparing his end of trip video, he certainly got a shock when we bought one copy between the group.

We paid around £3000 in tips, I am willing to guarantee the hard working boat deck guys didn't see very much of this, which is where my money would have gone.

Sorry guys but I have to work darn hard for my holidays and will not be forced to tip 10% on top of a very expensive trip.

 

[Crowley]

I'm an Australian;

When in the 3rd world I tip the locals individually, the Euro types get nothing.

When in America, I realise the minimum wage isn't a living wage, & that it's considered normal not to pay wait staff even the minimum, because they'll earn tips. So I tip everyone, but I'm not putting 10% of a $3000 dive trip into the box though.

In Oz, everyone gets a minimum wage, about $16 an hour. Depending on how high end the restaurant, good wait staff will probably be paid more than the minimum, & at the top end of the scale, they'll get a lot of tips as well. If the staff at a dive op told me they earn less than the minimum wage, & expect tips, I'd call them scabs, give them directions as to where to go, & instructions on what they should do when they get there. I don't tip anyone in Oz. People fought long & hard to ensure everyone got a living wage, I don't like people who put that at risk.

Picked up on this one - especially the first part - When in the third world... Although, as I said, I don't expect tips but they are nice, there is often the attitude that the native staff are somehow more worthy of a bit of extra cash because they earn less, and the "Euro types" must be rich kids on a jolly....

Well, it is often true that the locals are paid less than the foreign staff, but then it is often the case that their living expenses are less. I couldn't rent a room in the local staff accommodation if I wanted to; they don't have to pay several hundred Euros per year for work permits and agency fees; don't have to pay to maintain or replace expensive dive equipment, get "special prices" in certain shops and markets.

Also - when we talk about "locals" - do we mean the DMs or the guys hauling the tanks and driving the cars and boats? Our native instructors are paid exactly the same as the European staff, so that doesn't make sense either. Also, for the record, in the places I've worked, the instructors and DMs do far more in terms of actual workload than the people who do the background stuff.

On the other hand, I wholly agree that people who ask for tips up front are breaking some kind of hidden code of practice. Might as well just charge the customer more and pay more wages - that seems a little more honourable than trying to force people into doing it before quality of service has been established. We are expressly forbidden for soliciting personal tips, although I will often encourage a whip-round for the boat crews and we have a tip box for the local staff which is, invariably, well stocked.

Work hard, provide a good service, get tipped - or not - depending on your locale.

Cheers

C.