Look above at what you'd get with this class.
More and more sites are requiring AOW cards, and Nitrox is certainly useful too.
What Mike was doing is difficult - very difficult - to sell - because you get the "same" OW card that you get from the "3 day wonder" classes. There is no difference in the credential, so trying to sell the "better class" is almost impossible. Its impossible BECAUSE you can't make the value proposition with nebulous claims that a would-be diver can't verify.
WE know that trim and buoyancy are important. The "would be" diver just sees more work, more pain, more cost and more trouble. If he gets the same card as the guy who stands on the bottom, why does he care? For most such divers, he doesn't and won't pay, because he perceives that he gets nothing better. It is only after the money has been spent that he understands - but then its too late!
This would be VERY different. You'd have an "advanced" card, you'd have Nitrox, you'd have credentials for night, limited visability, deep, and drysuit diving. All of this would be rolled into the same class.
If you priced ALL those things SEPARATELY, you'd spend at least as much or possibly MORE than you'd spend on this class, yet you'd get less.
THAT is how the value equation can be made to work - and how it can be sold. IMHO it has to be able to be made to work, or you'll never be able to sell it.
I think this class WOULD sell to a new diver, once all this is explained. All the explanation required would be some video taken at a local dive site (e.g. a quarry) of the "typical" OW diver, then of one of the early graduates of this class.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and a movie is worth 10,000.
Consider the "newbie" who would like to dive the Spiegel Grove. Today, he can't. He is FORCED into buying an AOW cert at minimum, and will want a Nitrox one as well (a "bounce" for 10 minutes kinda bites when you can do 20 instead!) Suddenly his "dive trip" gets real expensive AND he blows three days on a class before he can do his "magic dive."
With this cert he can do all of the above. He can walk into any dive shop and rent a dry suit, book a night dive, go on any of the recreational boats, including those that want to see an AOW card, get a Nitrox fill if he wants, etc.
Basically, the entirety of "recreational diving" is open to this person - with one certification. Not just warm caribbean-style waters at 30', but also deep, cold, wrecks (outside only please!) with enough knowledge and skill to dive those things with reasonably safety. There is only a formal "rescue" class left for this diver and he has the full cornucopia of "recreational" certs in his hand!
In addition, this diver will have good trim and buoyancy, which means they'll enjoy the dive more. We know that, but you can't sell that, because a would-be-diver has no concept of how important that is or why you want it.
I understand that the "drysuit" part brings some challenges for shops - and divers. IMHO those challenges are essential to resolve; again, how many people NEVER dive in conditions where a drysuit would be nice? Hell, I live in Florida and there are plenty of times that I want my drysuit!
Up north I can't conceive of diving without one.
How serious ARE those challenges? Inexpensive drysuits are not difficult to source, and frankly, they're also not THAT much more expensive than a GOOD wetsuit, especially for cold water. A 2 piece 7mil cold-water wetsuit will easily set you back $300 or so. An inexpensive but VERY servicable drysuit can be had for $500 (Bare Nex-Gen), and that's not the dealer's cost - that's what you can BUY it for. So what's cost on this thing? $300 or so? Probably. Since the shop/instructor can actually make a decent amount of money on this class, can we not give the diver a deal on the suit? Sure we can, or we can rent it to him for the class. I bet most of the students will happily buy it, once they consider the options. Let 'em try the two-piece 7mil if they want on one dive - I bet most people will RUN to the dry option given the choice.
