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

[Centrals]

Hopefully, they will reopen soon! Can't wait to go to Indonesia

It has been opening with far far less restriction.
The stupid "business visa" is history because "visa on arrival"has been available for quite a while.
Only the international flight has not fully recovered yet.
No need to wait any longer.

 

[lbp25]

It has been opening with far far less restriction.
The stupid "business visa" is history because "visa on arrival"has been available for quite a while.
Only the international flight has not fully recovered yet.
No need to wait any longer.

The best time to visit is July-August though. Hope we won't be hit with another pandemic by then

 

[schuylerclark]

I'm someone who's started diving since Covid, so I'll share my story for what it's worth. We tried scuba in Dec 2019 in the Caribbean and were quite excited to get certified and then the world shut down. Living in a landlocked city our plan was always to do our certification dives on vacation. The first decent opportunity for us was Dec 2021, post-vaccines and once restrictions started to ease somewhat. Since then, we've jumped in with both feet. However, we're a married couple without kids and both of us have flexible jobs - and we live well below our means, so we have a little to spend on ourselves. If we didn't have that blessing, I doubt we'd be in a position to do much travel at the moment. Even so, rising airline prices have tempered our plans. I'll also note that for anyone who doesn't already own their home in the US, the expense probably seems absurd given the run up in housing costs in the last 18 months. Bigger fish to fry, so to speak.

I worked in a backpacking store in college and the prevailing wisdom was that recessions were good for business because lots of folks came to buy a pair of boots and go hiking. I'm pretty sure that's not true for the LDS.

 

[GiraffeMarineSalvage]

In addition to the obvious impacts of the various government responses to COVID tanking the economy, potential new divers may also have a high degree of uncertainty about if/when it is safe to dive if they have had COVID...
Unfortunately given individual health impacts have ranged from remaining entirely asymptomatic to death it will take some time for diving medicine to quantify the medical risks of one former COVID patient from another.
I love diving and have had no personal issues diving after experiencing a mild case of COVID, but if I were not already a diver I'ld likely simply apply the precautionary principle and prioritize other activities until more safety implications were conclusively known and while wages caught up with inflation...

 

[lexvil]

Over a million fewer potential customers in the US, worse globally.

 

[Centrals]

I worked in a backpacking store in college and the prevailing wisdom was that recessions were good for business because lots of folks came to buy a pair of boots and go hiking. I'm pretty sure that's not true for the LDS.

I have came to know the real life in many countries from all those yrs of backpacking.
Nothing can beat it.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Has the dive industry investigated why the drop off? We have discussed this ad nauseum, but our collective opinions don't matter as we are the ones who continue to dive. The question is, why do people stop/not start? (and no, I'm not looking/interested in hearing people's opinions. Only actual studies done. If they have been done, I'd be interested then).

I don’t think you will find an official report. Who would take the time and go through the trouble?
I’m still diving, you’re still diving, I’m sure your local dive buddies are still diving as are mine.
If you have to fly to dive, or insist on diving only in warm water/tropical locations then I think this is the demographic the industry is concerned about.
The vast majority of new OW divers get certified in warm clear waters. The ones who get certified and want to dive locally in cold low vis water like us will always be there.
We are the core that never wavers.

 

[Searcaigh]

When exactly did Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines open back up to tourists?

For certain parts of Indonesia it was April this year. My buddy and I paid a premium for a special visa earlier in the year and opted for a quarantine island that would allow us to dive (Murex Dives, Banka, North Sulawesi). Basically everything opened up just as we arrived, but we had the dive resort to ourselves for a couple of days at one point and we met other divers who had taken the same path.

Thailand was open before Indo to some degree (Phuket) and Philippines only opening now. Vaccination is required for Indonesia and Philippines.

 

[SlugLife]

I worked in a backpacking store in college and the prevailing wisdom was that recessions were good for business because lots of folks came to buy a pair of boots and go hiking. I'm pretty sure that's not true for the LDS.

Hiking is definitely a much lower cost hobby.

With everything locked down, I actually found SCUBA to be one of the few things I could do, so in a way it was the perfect pandemic-hobby.

 

[Jcp2]

It convinced me to learn to dive dry so I could dive locally. I have a far greater number of local dives now than I have vacation dives.