Post-pandemic comeback? Not yet! The dive industry is still crashing.

[boulderjohn]

The 3 dive centers that you mentioned with horrible customer service... They are affiliated with a training agency, right? They display a brand logo on their door or somewhere. Why aren't the scuba brands (mainly training agencies but also dive gear manufacturers) interested in protecting the value of their brand by ensuring proper customer service at locations authorized to use their brand?

What's the point of having a brand if it means nothing?

As a consumer, when I go to a McDonald's, I know the type of food they will have on the menu and the price range. But when I go to a Brand ABC dive training center, I have no idea what I'll get.

There is a major difference between a franchise in the McDonald's complex and a dive shop using agency materials for instruction.

You know what to expect in a McDonalds because that McDonalds gets all of its materials from the McDonalds corporation and must follow McDonalds rules for every step of the process. McDonalds is really the owner of the restaurant. What do you think would happen if an individual McDonalds decided to put non-McDonalds meals on their menu?

A dive shop is totally independent from a dive agency except that they use the dive agency for certifying divers. If they did not like what that agency tells them, they can switch agencies in a heartbeat, and nothing else with the store would change. Many stores offer instruction in multiple agencies. Even an agency that owns a shop can offer multiple agency options. Extreme Exposure in Florida is owned by the same man who owns GUE, but the last time I checked, you could also get PADI and TDI certifications there. Which of those agencies gets to tell the store how to operate?

Agencies have very little ability to direct the operations of the dive shops with their logo on it. In fact, they go out of their way to stop belief in any such connection. Students must sign a statement saying they understand that the instructor and dive operation are NOT agents of the dive agency and are not under their direct control. That is the result of a lawsuit in which PADI was successfully sued for millions under the argument that when two DMs who were working as volunteers for a dive club missed a diver in a roll call after the dive, they were working as agents of PADI.

An exception could be seen in the case of 4 dive shops operating in Tennessee a while ago (and might possibly still be there). Those shops were owned by Doug McNeese, who was also the owner of SSI. If one of those shops were sued for something that went wrong during instruction, then McNeese as an individual could be party to the suit, but I guarantee SSI as an agency would swear they had nothing to do with it.

 

[azstinger11]

That's basically what we pay in the Seattle area at many shops.

Same price in the midwest at every shop I have been to lately.

Jeez, and I think it's a rip off past $5

 

[living4experiences]

If large scale cruising dies, that is only a net benefit for humanity. If the end of mass polluting, reef destroying, floating petri dishes happens sooner rather than later that should be celebrated not bemoaned. The ramifications on the scuba industry be damned.

The Dirty Side of Cruise Ships

Cruise ship pollution is a major part of our environmental impact. A single ship emits the same amount of sulfur dioxide as 3,6 MILLION cars.

www.geekyexplorer.com

GDPR Support

Video captures cruise ship destroying protected coral reef | Men's Journal

A video uploaded by a scuba diver on Tuesday shows the anchor of a Royal Caribbean cruise ship destroying a protected coral reef off of Grand Cayman.

www.mensjournal.com

How Ships are Destroying Coral Reefs Around the World?

Marine Insight - The maritime industry guide.

www.marineinsight.com

The Importance of Testing Cruise Ships for Legionella

The importance of testing cruise ships for Legionella

www.wqpmag.com

Cruise Ship Travel | CDC Yellow Book 2024

Information about how to order the U.S. government publication about traveling titled "Health Information for International Travel" (also called the "Yellow Book"). Provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

wwwnc.cdc.gov

If the shutdown of 2020 didn't kill off the cruise industry, nothing will. Since the CDC lifted the reduced capacity requirements earlier this year, the ships are nearly full again, even though they don't have the staffing levels back to normal. They all cried broke, then foul when the federal government didn't give them handouts, yet new ships are rolling off the assembly line every month.

 

[living4experiences]

Honestly I think one of the biggest issues is that dive shops and many instructors haven’t adapted to change in viewpoints, tastes, and quality of life realities that the younger generations face. Like it or not, millennials and Gen Z are the growth markets for the sport. Failure to cater to them will be disastrous. Adapt or die.

It's very difficult to get anyone to pay attention to a sport for which they cannot readily see in action. There are no diving-related events broadcast on TV or the Olympics, and you can find the occasional free-diving competition while channel surfing. Our world is underwater and it's hard to get people to care about or become interested in what they don't see either on TV or everyday life.

 

[Cthippo]

Not sure TV is even the right media to consider. Younger folks are much more likely to get their entertainment online through social media. I can;t speak for all of youTube, but with Simply Scuba gone and Diver's Ready having cut way back on content, the only dive content I see is the two guys reacting to other people's videos and that is not what I want to watch.

 

[Marie13]

Jonathan Bird’s Blue World has a ton of diving videos, cave and ocean. The cinematography is incredible. He did the filming for the Ancient Caves movie.

There are a ton of diving videos on YT.

 

[Jcp2]

That’s not the same as what’s popular on “social media” now. What we need is a Jake Paul clone who dives with a FFM and comms that has a buddy with a GoPro with comms who goes with Jake and films as he narrates in real time. Bonus if the film crew tows a buoy with a flag with an umbilical on the line to a phone on the surface for live streaming. The crew would also have a large tablet in a case so that Jake can react and respond to comments. In fact, Jake could be the only one on scuba with the rest on hookah.

 

[boulderjohn]

The world of media in the days of Sea Hunt and Jacques Cousteau is a very different one from the one we have now. If you wanted entertainment at home, yourchoices were radio or TV, and the new medium of TV blew radio away. Homes had antennas on their roof to catch the local broadcast channels, which were the only viewing options. In some viewing areas, some small, low range channels provided local coverage, but really you had a choice between CBS, NBC, and ABC or their affiliates. That was it.

I lived in upstate New York, close enough to NYC that we got the parent stations of CBS, NBC, and ABC. I named them in that order for a reason. When channels were being assigned, there was a rumor that the federal government would claim the lowest numbers, and ABC took a chance and jumped on channel 7. The rumor was false, and in my area, CBS got channel 2 and NBC got channel 4. The numbers were significant. The lower the number, the stronger your signal.

I lived in what was called a fringe reception area, and we could only get CBS and NBC. On a good day, my grandparents could get ABC, and I would go there on the nights Zorro was playing, hoping it would come in. Other than that, we had to choose between what was showing on CBS or NBC.

When the idea for Sea Hunt was pitched in the late 1950s, none of the big 3 networks took it. It went into syndication, playing in minor markets to big ratings. When the series finally ended in syndication (1962), different networks picked it up and showed reruns, and I would bet that's how most people saw it. For me, it ran on CBS (I believe). That means that when CBS in New York was playing it, we had a choice between watching that or watching whatever was on NBC.

Jacques Cousteau aired on ABC, and that was a no hoper in my area. I never saw an episode.

Today a show of any kind on any medium is going to run against major competition for viewership. I cannot imagine any scuba-based production, no matter how well designed or executed, having the kind of effect that Sea Hunt and Jacques Cousteau had in the age of forced viewership.

 

[Jcp2]

The world of media in the days of Sea Hunt and Jacques Cousteau is a very different one from the one we have now. If you wanted entertainment at home, yourchoices were radio or TV, and the new medium of TV blew radio away. Homes had antennas on their roof to catch the local broadcast channels, which were the only viewing options. In some viewing areas, some small, low range channels provided local coverage, but really you had a choice between CBS, NBC, and ABC or their affiliates. That was it.

I lived in upstate New York, close enough to NYC that we got the parent stations of CBS, NBC, and ABC. I named them in that order for a reason. When channels were being assigned, there was a rumor that the federal government would claim the lowest numbers, and ABC took a chance and jumped on channel 7. The rumor was false, and in my area, CBS got channel 2 and NBC got channel 4. The numbers were significant. The lower the number, the stronger your signal.

I lived in what was called a fringe reception area, and we could only get CBS and NBC. On a good day, my grandparents could get ABC, and I would go there on the nights Zorro was playing, hoping it would come in. Other than that, we had to choose between what was showing on CBS or NBC.

When the idea for Sea Hunt was pitched in the late 1950s, none of the big 3 networks took it. It went into syndication, playing in minor markets to big ratings. When the series finally ended in syndication (1962), different networks picked it up and showed reruns, and I would bet that's how most people saw it. For me, it ran on CBS (I believe). That means that when CBS in New York was playing it, we had a choice between watching that or watching whatever was on NBC.

Jacques Cousteau aired on ABC, and that was a no hoper in my area. I never saw an episode.

Today a show of any kind on any medium is going to run against major competition for viewership. I cannot imagine any scuba-based production, no matter how well designed or executed, having the kind of effect that Sea Hunt and Jacques Cousteau had in the age of forced viewership.

You don’t need forced viewership of a full length television show. You need small snippets of interesting well produced video clips that have viral appeal. My kids get most of their cultural updates via Instagram, Discord, or TikTok. YouTube is for viewing longer music videos or media reviews. Reddit is for specific narrow topics. Facebook is for old people.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

A number of my students have never heard of JYC. With the fact that JYC's second wife just sits on an alleged massive amount of unedited film, I'm not optimistic that we are going to see anything. I do appreciate that in Europe, there is more awareness of who he was.