I am headed to the pool to hang out and chill after having my dive plans killed this weekend by work but I just wanted to say that I really do not see the logic behind anything DEMA is doing right now. I have been saying for years that they and a number of facets of the industry are stuck in the past. They don't see the roots that they should be tending and focusing on. Forget my past rants about their obsession with resorts. It comes down to how do you increase the diving population and more importantly keep them diving. The latter is perhaps the most crucial to the survival of the industry. I don't give a rats behind if you issue a million certs. It means nothing if those people do not keep diving and diving on a regualr basis.
My teaching business this year is not looking as good as it has been.
Part of that is not being able to get out and promote myself locally due to work but a great deal of it is lack of awareness that there even is a diver population in SW Pa.
DEMA is doing nothing to change that perception. Either through some type of ad campaign about inland local diving, supporting inland regional and local shows, regular contact with dive clubs, or suggesting to it's members to push the subject in their ads and marketing. I attended Scubafest this year in Columbus Ohio for my fourth year. DEMA was there. Kinda. There was a DEMA board member in attendance but not in an official capacity for DEMA. But DEMA did not have a booth, banner, ad, etc. And they very well could have given their mission. A simple ad that said DEMA supported the show would have shown not only the public attendees but the local shops and mfg's who did attend that DEMA was in some way supporting their efforts to provide the local shops and through them the mfg's with a way to reach the public and make them aware of diving.
What distressed me as well was the lack of effort by some mfg's to even acknowledge the efforts of their local dealers in promoting their brands by not offering trinkets for door prizes and raffle items by cutting the costs of those items to the dealers. This would have made it possible for them to have more dive related items and less stuff from Budweiser, Arizona Iced Teas, and other items not related to diving in any way. I had that support and was able to donate a new BC, two masks, and a snorkel as well as CD's of my book. I will be attending another function in July at the DAN BBQ at Portage Quarry and donating a new regulator as well as some small items for that.
This is my way of, yes, promoting myself and my business but also diving in general and giving back some of what it has given to me. DEMA could aid in this effort by encouraging their members to do the same. Why not offer a small token discount to members who donate and support local shows instead of trying to cut their throats by setting up competing ones?
The other thing they could do is make it easier for local dive retailers AND instructors to get the word out. Let local shops and independent instructors that work with local shops come up with an inexpensive awareness campaign and help them promote it by offering a prize for the best ads that would help the locals get it in their newspaper, on their local cable, or other media and then make those ads available to all to use. They have the "Be a Diver" traveling pool thing but the few times it showed up around here the advertising for it was minimal and usually shouldered by the shop itself and perhaps the venue it was at, but there was no widespread word. I saw no local paper announcements, no cable tv ad, just an email and maybe a blurb in a dive related publication or dive site that only divers are seeing. Not the general public.
Now as to keeping divers diving. You need to make sure they are not only aware of local diving but able to do that. How? Promote the additional training that is sometimes required and the benefits of it. Is there anything being done along those lines? Not that I see. All the ads I see are geared towards going away and the ones promting gear are ones using it in those places.
How am I promoting local diving and gear sales and training. By making local diving appear to be just as fun and more rewarding. More rewarding in that it's way less expensive travel wise, that it takes less time, and it supports the local shops and equipment mfgs since you not only need, but want to have your own gear.
Yesterday I had a couple come down from Canada to pick up new regs and BPW's. From Canada. Why? Because I offered them something else besides a good deal. I offered them service and a reason to make the trip. After going over all the gear and showing them the items necessary to maintain it and what they should be doing with it we went to the pool for two hours to adjust and try it out. All during this time I was talking about the local diving available to them in this region. How many other shops do that over promoting their trips to Florida, Bonaire, Belize, etc. All great places but all places they would enjoy more if they had the gear AND greater skills that local diving develops. This is how I support the industry and promote it. By not focusing on the industry but on the diver. Divers support mfg's to a much greater extent than shops do.
Some mfg's realize this and respond to it. Others do not. DEMA would do well to consider this and perhaps come up with a way to benefit their industry members by starting a campaign to promote local inland shops and dive sites by getting mfg's to do the same. Promote local shows and local diving. It would only benefit the industry as a whole and not take away from it. It would support the local shops and the mfg's they buy from.
I fully expect to catch some flack over this post but I don't care. I love this activity and this industry. It has given me a purpose and a direction in my whole life. That it is not promoted as it could be is distressing and disappointing. I do not want to have it as a full time job. But I do want to have it. DEMA needs to see that it is more than an industry for some of us. It has a heart and that heart needs tending. The shop is not the heart. The diver who patronizes the shop is. A shop with a million dollar inventory, olympic sized pool, and 20 instructors is nothing and does nothing for the industry if it does not have the individual divers to support it.
With that I am going to the pool and chill. Not even going to take my cell. I need a break.
