The papers on the gender gap in hard science manage to convince some very educated senators, too.
As for the drop out rate, PADI won't talk about it publicly, but in member forums, there have been pesentations that tossed out a 90% dropout rate. Of course that's based on PADI's awareness of the subjects' diving, which is largely based on continuuing ed statistics. I think the problem is that PADI has looked for growth in THEIR business, which is intake of new divers at the front end (most of their income comes from OW and below materials and credentials) and that's coming at the expense of the rest of the industry, because they depend on continued diving by existing divers. The way to grow the front end intake is to expand that market into population segments who won't dive long term, but will invest a few months of their lives in it just for the "been there, done that" cachet value, and then they'll be off to add bungee jumping, or street luging, or whatever else Reality TV has added to the "must do" list. These people will NEVER become long term divers; because they lack any attention span, ability to make long term commitments, or sense of the value of deferred gratification, but they spend money like there's no tomorrow, and there are a bajillion of them who haven't ridden the scuba-go-round yet. A certification agency can rake in great profits for at least 20 years on this market, just churning them out through the cert mill, and if, after one trip to Club Med and a round of elephant diving (just wrap your trunk around the tail in front of you and everything will be fine) they never dive again, so what. The cert agency doesn't make anything off people just going diving. Sooner or later, the rest of the industry needs to figure out that the cert agency's economic interests are not the same as theirs, and may at times even be in conflict. Regarding the question above about non-profits, the NON-ECONOMIC interests of a non-profit cert agency are much more aligned with the economic interests of the rest of the industry.
Hi guys. Been off the thread for awhile, like to get back in. First I would like to apologise to Thalassa about my final remark. It's just that those of us who teach with PADI ARE BORED BY SO MUCH padibashing. So if I was rude, I'm sorry.
The drpout thing is something that I have looked at very carefully over the years. The sex discrimination thing too.
On dropouts. Effectively a lot of people start activities and don't continue. A lot of couples start diving before they get married on on their honeymoon and then time, costs, children and a host of other things get int the way. There is a whole other group of people who have "bad" experiences that don't get sorted by the centers and don't come back.
The "official"statistic that I manage is that 50% of people who do OWD or similar with another agency WILL NEVER DIVE AGAIN. Apparently a lot of this is because in couples one of the members persuaded the other to do the course but there was no interest in going on.
I can't talk about other centers, but most of the ones I have worked for tend to concentrate on building a core client basis and rappor with X number of divers who will come back and each DCO and center has their strategy.
I know one guy who is very successful and making a lot of money and the center working flat out 365 days a year. Apart from the fact he is in an ideal location he basically is not interested in front end students and often sends them down the street to other centers. He focuses the business on giving quality service to qulaity divers and ealises that if he mixes junior divers in, the better divers won't come back. He sells a lot of equipment (people upgrading from something they had as an OWD) and mainly sells tech courses to people who want to go one step beyond.
However, I also happen to have worked for MR.OWD INSTRUCTOR, agreat guy who really takes OWD training seriously because as he says, his NAME is on those cert cards, so he wants to turn out the best OWDs in the country and his standards are high. He has disagreements on a number of occasions with people doing OWD and AOWD because he has said that he will not certify them and they have to do more dives to get certified.
Personally, I try to get anybody on my watch to build towards and do Rescue, not because of the money but because I believe in it.
As far as sexual discrimination, many women discriminate against themselves. As a skydiver as well, I can say that most of the time there is an 80/20 ratio between young men and women in both SCUBA and skydiving. Men are simply more attracted to these kind of activities. There are well studied antropological reasons for this, amongst which is that men have a different attitude to risk than women. How many women race drivers or superbike racers are there?
Threre is a percentage of women who are interested in diving and go on. Actually I happen to have a buddy who is doing IDC right now: she was attached to Special Forces in the Army.... I get a lot of nice female students but I think they get turned off from all of us guys wanting to crry their kit and beoing too protective....
Oh, by the way, it was GREAT being able too put faces too some of the members here on the board at the expo last weekend! Sorry that I couldn't get time too get in a dive with you Bob, but that just makes another excuse too get back up and get a dive or two in when things aren't so hectic.
