The changing Scuba Industry

[diver0008]

the point i was making is that i (and presumably other millennials) would rather experience the world rather than spend all our money on...

And what do you think GenX'ers and older are doing diving?

Not experiencing?

 

[CuzzA]

I'll preface this by saying I'm not a statistician and perhaps I'll be revealing some ignorance here on the subject and for the sake of simplicity I'll focus on the U.S...If I'm misguided here I'm sure one of you will correct me, but, I think you guys are mixing the points I'm trying to make.

The U.S. population has been growing on average about 1% per year, year after year. More people, more potential new customers.
Google Fusion Tables

Yet, when you look at the data from DEMA it appears the number of new divers entering the sport every year is about the same. More people, same number of certs.

Now, couple that with the demographic who typically gets into the sport because they have the means and there is a significant amount of more people in that demographic today.

I would contend that there is simply not a constant level of growing interest in the sport compared to both the number of people being added to the population and the growing number of people who are in the top demographic to become a diver.

Consider this as well... Florida's population is exploding. People both moving here and being born, yet the same amount of divers are getting into the sport in 2005 as they were in 2014.
Florida's population exploding; expected to reach 20.7 million by end of 2016

How do you explain that other than a lack of interest?

Millennials? Or the industry is not doing a good job of getting new divers into the sport.

 

[KevinNM]

Google the University of Miami scuba class, it may be scientific diver class, and look at their trim and buoyancy in the pool. It is perfect for a bunch of cave divers. Trim is trim, the instructors just happen to be GUE cave divers.

That's the one where the 1 hour written final exam is done in the pool on wetnote paper and you fail if you touch the bottom or surface?

 

[KevinNM]

The lesson: have you looked at how massive the cuts will be to the NOAA budget in the coming year? They may be close to going out of business.

All the people whose career for the last 12+ years has been "correcting" the temperature records for the last century so the past was cooler (and then deleting the original data from the NOAA archives) may have a problem. The people running GOES won't have a problem.

 

[KevinNM]

Musical instrument sales, gun shops, bicycles, mountain climbing gear, boating equipment, same story.

Gun shops have a coercive monopoly due the 68 GCA and Clinton's effective ban on non-premises based FFLs. If you had to do a face to face transfer at a dive store to run the FBI check background on every regulator sold and required a federal license to provide air fills the LDS would be in better shape.

 

[KevinNM]

I think a decent equivalent would be shooting.

Most gun shops and most LDS are very similar in their dysfunctions and the reason they exist.

 

[BRT]

Gun shops have a coercive monopoly due the 68 GCA and Clinton's effective ban on non-premises based FFLs. If you had to do a face to face transfer at a dive store to run the FBI check background on every regulator sold and required a federal license to provide air fills the LDS would be in better shape.

And some dive shops believe it should be that way "for safety".

 

[KevinNM]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is that some people in the industry are responding by using tech diving as an additional source of class revenue and gear sales.

The TDI numbers said you have to produce something like 50 OW divers to get someone who will be both interested and capable of earning their first tech certificate.

 

[diver0008]

Or the industry is not doing a good job of getting new divers into the sport.

This is what I came to see as a possibility in an earlier post in this thread.

Is there an umbrella organization for the industry that represents manufacturers and retailers?

 

[cool_hardware52]

This is what came to see as a possibility in an earlier post in this thread.

Is there an umbrella organization for the industry that represents manufacturers and retailers?

In theory that what DEMA does........

Tobin