Is DM or Instructor rally worth it?

[dave hill]

hi,

i'm in Thailand with my girlfriend and we're both looking into doing DM courses or even going for instructor.

In the meduim term, will either of these qualifications pay for themselves?

what would the going rate be for them both?

what's the cheapest place in asia to do PADI courses?

will they condemn us both to a life of poverty?

cheers.

dave.

 

[DivemasterSteve]

99% of the time, the only way a Dive Pro will ever get rich is if someone in his/her family dies and leaves him/her a bunch. dont even think about becoming a Divemaster if your just in it for the money. this is just my opinion anyway.

steve

 

[DiveTub]

Teaching is for the love of it, not for the money.

I dont know any instructor that actually makes a living full time teaching, all suppliment their income with another job of some type.

DM's are a dime a dozen. You will never ever live off the money made by DMing.

Oh yea the cheapest is not always the best.

 

[Karl_in_Calif]

We have a couple of store owners locally who have really thriving stores. This includes on-site pools and large floor space for gear.

They have bought new homes and new Lincoln Navigators.

I would say that they are doing great. Location, location, location seems to be the reason for their success.

One of them was an engineer in industry, who took all his stock option money plus severance and invested it in his store.

The instructors who work for him are all part-timers. Their scuba income, from what they tell me, amounts to minimum wage, like flipping burgers at a burger joint.

The D/Ms do not earn any funds at all, they only get credits towards their ITCs/IDCs, and 15% gear purchase discounts, and a free lunch when they help with a class, plus chicks for free (as the Dire Straights song Money For Nothing goes).

We have a slew of store owners locally who are barely making ends meet. Two of them also have pools on site, but very little floor space. The rest do not have pools on site, and they are struggling as well.

Any more questions?

 

[AngusThermopyle]

I think with the greatest respect to the other posters you have to look at it from the perspective of being in Thailand.

You have also got to crunch the numbers and see if what you can earn will be enough to live on.

There certainly seem to be a number of independent instructors who make a decent living out here.

To look at some numbers...

What does an Open Water student cost an instructor. (all US $)

Rent of a pool and gear for 1 day $5
Class room free (any quiet place will do)
Course materials almost free (they all seem to be borrowed or copied)
Cost of 2 days for the student on a boat (inc gear) $50 (instructor normally goes for free if he brings a few people)
Pic $15
Other costs travel , padi dues etc $10

So total costs 5+50+15+10=$80

I think if you look around the web the min. price for OW is about $300 so give or take a little the instructor is earning about $220 a student.

So if you get 4 students / week we can call that 16 / month thats over $3,500 / month. Thats a heck of a lot more than you get flipping burgers in Thailand.

If 16 students / month seems a lot you should also consider that if you can just talk somebody into going for a days diving them your cost is $25 and they will pay you $75 (check prices around the web) a handy $50 / person / day without breaking a sweat.

All these facts and figures mean little if you are unable to network and go out and find customers.

Working for one of the larger 5* centre's will certainly not make you a million bucks. They have overheads such as building rent , capital outlay on Boat + Gear that needs to be taken out of the income before you start thinking about the centre's pound of flesh. You would probably beat a burger flipper , but not by much.

Minimun wage here does not beat $5 / day. But I think a college degree is now min. requirement for flipping burgers.

You certainly can make it work and certainly live very comfortably if you are prepared to put in the time and effort and you need to have the right kind of personality for it.

One think that is worth mentioning is that you would be earning all this tax free but that obviously means you are working illegaly:mean:

 

[AngusThermopyle]

Missed a couple of your questions.

Cheapest place , probably Koh Tao.

Cost , should be less than $3,000 from OW to MSDT

 

[Universal Diver]

Dave,

Nobody has mentioned what extra costs you'll be paying. If you don't work in the business you could be committing yourself to annual bills you don't want to pay.

Nobody explained clearly to me what would happen if I became a DM. Once you become a DM, you are considered a professional. With being a professional, you also have to pay your annual membership fee to remain a professional.

Did anyone mention the liability insurance? This is also an annual fee that you'll have to pay almost forever.

The fees become higher, the higher you become. An instructor pays more than a DM.

Personally, my goal is to be able to pay my annual fee, my liability insurance, my personal DAN diving insurance and my overhalls on my gear. So I have to teach sporatically throughout the year.

You'll never be rich just being an instructor. Dive gear sales and Continuous Education is where you could make your money. If you get past the OW student and look deeper.

Your OW student can become a DM someday. Your OW student will need gear. From one student the possibilities to make money are there if you want to put in the effort.

I have a friend who owns a dive gear retail shop. He was once a Course Director but now he never dives! He's getting rich off selling gear. That's it.

Good luck.

Chris

 

[paulwlee]

I think you need to be at least OWSI to be able to make what little money you can. If you look carefully, most 'DM's in tropical resorts and dive boats are actually instructors.

I've heard that you can make a comfortable living in the Caribbean or SE Asia, but that's only because living costs are so cheap.

In the developed world, what Karl says is generally true. I'm an AI, and DM for an instructor who's a director at a high tech company. All the instructors at the store I'm affiliated with have day jobs. (Sounds like it may be the same store Karl is talking about...) I get paid $50 a weekend at the ocean, which just basically covers my gas and parking. I get free airfills, which amount to maybe half the insurance. (I need to get insurance myself.) So, I guess I could say I'm losing $100 a year. But then again I do get discounts on gear, so that does more than make up for it, as I spend a fair sum at the store. I have yet to break even if I consider DM+AI training costs. (Note that I'm counting discounts as earned money. In reality I'm just paying my LDS less than most other people do. )

So why do I do it? Because it's fun. This is also probably why there are too many instructors and DM's and as a result the pay is almost non-existent.