Future of SCUBA Industry?

[SeaHound]

I wanted to post this in the scuba industry forum but I only have reading previlages there. I was writing this for a possible news report:

I wanted to know how badly has the global scuba industry been effected by the economic downturn and what future do people engaged in this sport see for recreational scuba. This will help in a report that I am putting together.

I am putting a series of questions. This is more to measure everyones perceptions, their optimism / pessimism about where our beloved sport is headed in the next few years. Besides your precious vote, feel free to share stories, experiences and memories of the good old days

Thanks ...

 

[Garrobo]

Scuba is an in-and -out business like most endeavors, both for the participants and the wannabe business owners. Many people have an opportunity to do a couple dives either on vacation or some or one of their friends is a diver. Either they get enthralled with the sport, like I did, and want to keep on diving, which they do, or get uninterested for one reason or the other, boredom, health, finances, etc and drop out. On the other hand some have the grand idea that they can make lots of money by opening up a dive shop in some midwestern hicktown, figuring that the entire population should be as interested in diving as they are and lose their a$$, or if they are really savvy, and have investigated the feasability of a proprietorship in their immediate area take the advise of someone who knows about these things, then they forget it or they make a go of it or sometimes buy an existing, profitable shop. The diving industry is always in flux because of these reasons. The dive shops, wholesaler and manufacturers depend on new divers who they cojole into buying all new bright, shiny stuff right away so that the customer doesn't have the time or common sense to investigate the cost and availability of used or online purchases of the equipment. They need to hurry and sell before the uninformed and new diver finds out that their is a treasure of lightly-used epuipment on Ebay and in yard sales and gets away from them. Then there is the experienced diver who wants to upgrade his/her stuff and just has to have the latest thing or actually necessitates an improved item or items. I think that diving will be around for a long time and have no clue what the future of the diving "business" has in store for itself and really don't think that anyone else has either. All I know is that I plan to continue to dive as long as my health will let me, no matter what the cost. Let's get wet.

 

[scubafanatic]

I did pick up some of my dive computers from a LDS last weekend (software upgrades) and the owner told me he used to lead one dive trip per month but this year he's only done ONE dive trip, and he attributed that dramatic falloff to the economy. Also, just a couple weeks ago one of my favorite gear brands (Deepoutdoors) closed the doors, yet another victim of the recession. I've been told by numerous dive shop owners that they make no $ off trips, gear sales is where they make their $, yet the struggles of gear manufacturers indicates gear margins may fall too, especially due to the decline in consumer purchasing power/discresionary income, and as previously noted, the competition from the ocean of used gear sloshing around on E-Bay/Craigslist isn't helping gear margins either. Moreover, the massive ongoing decline in the health of the world's oceans/reefs continues, so, much as I love this sport, in the longer term, the scuba industry is toast (aside from the 0.000001 % of scuba divers who are into caves/wrecks, who won't have to care if the oceans are dead.)

 

[elmer fudd]

Let's just start with some basic assumptions that we can all agree upon.

1. The world population is growing. Maybe not in places like Japan, Italy or Russia, but in general there are still more people on earth each year than there were the year before, lots more.
2. They are also generally more affluent. Sure poverty is everywhere and can be extreme, but vast middle classes of hundreds of millions of people are emerging all over the world. 30 years ago no one would have predicted the extent of the economic rise of China or India and countries like South Korea were still considered poor. Now there are tens of millions of people all over Asia with the money to go diving where there weren't before.
3. Diving becomes more refined and accessible with every year as well. Look at the equipment we use now and then look at the past. Back 100 years ago if you went diving you either did it in a swimsuit or naked, without even a mask or fins, or you were one of a handful of people who wore a canvas suit and a hardhat and frequently got bent. 50 years ago you would have been diving with a double hose regulator, no octopus, no BC, no SPG and a J-valve. 20 years ago a dive computer was a rarity.

Someday there will be rebreathers out there that are affordable and safer than our current OC gear as well as a great many other technical innovations that will make our current gear look like something from the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.

Given all of the above, the only way I can see the diving industry not expanding in the long term is if there is some kind of worldwide catastrophe.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I think the mass popularity of scuba diving has waned in the past several years. The "heyday" I think is over. Now, even though the industry has many more participants than 20 or 30 years ago, it is decreasing and those remaining are the hard cores that just love diving and will continue to dive no matter what. The problem is that the industry set themselves up to handle what they expected would be continuous never ending growth and that just didn't happen, so now their stuck with a giant machine to feed.

The freediving scene is different. That is a much smaller market that is more sustainable. People get into freediving that are serious and commited. That's a whole different animal.

One thing I'm seeing is a glut of online dive equipment discounters and several of them are suffering. They have prices so shaved down with free shipping and all the premium return policies etc., that unless they are going full blast 100% everyday they start to slide backwards. Next thing you know they can't pay their bills and are playing catch up. Problem is, to catch up they have to do over 100% full capacity and nobody is doing that right now. I think it's only a matter of time before we see a sizable collapse in the online retail industry.

Just like any recreational sports, all of them have peaks and valleys.
I remember being in the exercise equipment business in the late 70's and saw the explosion of that industry first with home gyms and then later fitness centers sprouted up everywhere. Then came the glut and finally the downturn.
Snowboarding, wakeboarding, mountain biking, etc., they've all been there.

 

[Erku]

That seems pessimistic, scubafanatic... as a biologist (not specifically an ecologist mind you) myself, I'd say that while the declining health of the oceans is of vital relevance to our continued economic and food source health, and loss of reef biodiversity is intensely tragic, the oceans will not become 'dead zones' any time soon; not in the sense of there being nothing to dive to see. Just as there's still nice stuff to see in areas that have experienced forest fires, so will the oceans remain attractive as long as there's life there. If that isn't the case, we as a species will likely be too busy struggling for survival to think about scuba, as far more than just our seafood and scuba industries hinge on the continued health of our oceans. Our oxygen supply, for example.

I can't speak for economic impact, but your ecological predictions are a bit miscalibrated

 

[scubafanatic]

That seems pessimistic, scubafanatic... as a biologist (not specifically an ecologist mind you) myself, I'd say that while the declining health of the oceans is of vital relevance to our continued economic and food source health, and loss of reef biodiversity is intensely tragic, the oceans will not become 'dead zones' any time soon; not in the sense of there being nothing to dive to see. Just as there's still nice stuff to see in areas that have experienced forest fires, so will the oceans remain attractive as long as there's life there. If that isn't the case, we as a species will likely be too busy struggling for survival to think about scuba, as far more than just our seafood and scuba industries hinge on the continued health of our oceans. Our oxygen supply, for example.

I can't speak for economic impact, but your ecological predictions are a bit miscalibrated

While I'm not a biologist, I did take a ton of biology classes in college, have been diving since 2001...and am actually leaving tomorrow to spend a week in Cozumel (20 dives planned), and I read/see plenty of ocean news on Discover channel/WWW, plus I have seen much since 2001 and have personally witnessed the rapid decline in the health of the oceans, so I stand behind my position. I've been an active member of 'undercurrent.org' for many years now, which isn't a scuba industry cheerleader and tends to take off the rose colored glasses when it comes to the state/fate of scuba/ocean, so I'm definitely 'up' on the news.

 

[Mike Boswell]

What we are mistakenly calling a "recession" is actually an ongoing readjustment to the "new normal" for the West. The era of a large, affluent middle class - an anomaly by historical standards - is over, and with it, the era of expensive leisure activities by average families. Virtually all workers - including engineers, accountants and lawyers -are now competing with millions of Indians and Chinese for jobs, and highly paid labor in the West is increasingly a thing of the past.

Western governments, in an effort to soften the blow, are bankrupting themselves and will be unable to to prevent the inevitable social unrest. Vicious inflation is already guaranteed as governments must escape their mounting debts by printing more money. Class envy will erupt in open hostility. Demagogues will exploit the rage of the suffering middle classes and pin the blame on the wealthy, on immigrants, and on minorities.

While inflation and lower wages reduce paychecks, rising standards of living abroad will increase demand and prices for oil, wheat, and other commodities, making them more expensive on world markets. Lifestyles and expectations in the West will be adjusted downwards. American mothers will once again learn to cook, and Alaskan cruises will be replaced by backyard barbeques. There will be a lot fewer BMW's in high school parking lots.

Scuba and other expensive sports will take a disproportionate hit, because travel, cruise ships, and recreation are the first things to go when families are under financial stress. Hotel clerks and Dive masters worldwide will have to begin learning Mandarin.

On a global scale, the oceans will continue to be depleted until it is no longer profitable for factory ships to leave port. Rising waters will drown low-lying areas like Florida and Bangladesh. Global warming will displace billions of people, as Tibetan Plateau glaciers feeding the Indus, Ganges, and Yangtze rivers melt away. Greenland will once again be green, and Canadians will begin marketing bananas and coffee.

All the changes taking place today point to a much smaller human footprint in the future. Humans will have to learn to live more frugally and sustainably, taking no more than the earth can provide. Beef and pork will be replaced by lentils, rice and wheat. Lobster and Tuna will be replaced by Krill.

 

[Erku]

While I'm not a biologist, I did take a ton of biology classes in college, have been diving since 2001...and am actually leaving tomorrow to spend a week in Cozumel (20 dives planned), and I read/see plenty of ocean news on Discover channel/WWW, plus I have seen much since 2001 and have personally witnessed the rapid decline in the health of the oceans, so I stand behind my position. I've been an active member of 'undercurrent.org' for many years now, which isn't a scuba industry cheerleader and tends to take off the rose colored glasses when it comes to the state/fate of scuba/ocean, so I'm definitely 'up' on the news.

Sorry, while my wording may have seemed optimistic, that wasn't rose coloured. I'm saying we'll be dead as a species before the oceans are too dead to scuba dive. There will be critters - even interesting ones - down there for a long while yet, even long after the biosphere is too heavily impacted for us to find food, drinking water, and breathable air. The survival of specific magnificent species and fragile ecosystems is unlikely, but kelp forests, cephalopods, arthropods, and many of the other 'survivors' of the sea are more resilient than we are. We'll be unable to maintain the economic infrastructure of scuba long, long before we run out of things to see down there.

 

[elmer fudd]

Sorry, while my wording may have seemed optimistic, that wasn't rose coloured. I'm saying we'll be dead as a species before the oceans are too dead to scuba dive. There will be critters - even interesting ones - down there for a long while yet, even long after the biosphere is too heavily impacted for us to find food, drinking water, and breathable air. The survival of specific magnificent species and fragile ecosystems is unlikely, but kelp forests, cephalopods, arthropods, and many of the other 'survivors' of the sea are more resilient than we are. We'll be unable to maintain the economic infrastructure of scuba long, long before we run out of things to see down there.

This is exactly right. Where I dive, here in South Puget Sound, we've already basically had an ecological calamity. The populations of salmon, rockfish, ling cod, orcas and many other species are only a tiny fraction of what they used to be and some species like the Pacific cod are pretty much gone entirely. It's tragic and if I had my way a lot politicians and bureaucrats would be in prison for allowing it to happen, but despite the devastation, there's still a lot worth seeing. The GPO's and the wolf eels are still there as well as hundreds of less noticed but still interesting species like decorator crabs and nudibranchs.