Tipping DM in Coz?

[BRT]

Hotel staffers, with a few exceptions generally get paid and don't provide me the same level of service that a good DM does. I tip the maid in most hotels $5/day. I tip waiters and bartenders 20%. All of that is adjusted if the service isn't great of course.

If you can't or won't tip then don't. It's not a requirement.

Hotel staffers in that part of Mexico would starve without tips and what is left behind in the condo's. I know a camarista very well and she has told me how it all works.

 

[BRT]

I'm pretty sure that if the shops pay the DMs more, then the customers will be paying a bigger chunk of money. The increased employee pay will be passed on to the customers, and the customers will no longer have the option of paying no tip, small tip, or large tip.

I am friends with a successful businessman in the area who seems to take a different vewpoint on tipping. I tried tipping his VERY capable employees and they turned me down. Not allowed to take tips. I have to think that they were being paid well because they were smart, good at what they did and provided great service. Seems like the owner wanted the employees working for him, not for his customers.

 

[Saxonjd]

My last trip this summer I tipped around $300 pesos per 2 tank trip. I try to tip in pesos, not sure if it matters or appreciated, but is easier for me to just use the local currency for all matters.

 

[Snoweman]

My last trip this summer I tipped around $300 pesos per 2 tank trip. I try to tip in pesos, not sure if it matters or appreciated, but is easier for me to just use the local currency for all matters.

That's about $8/tank. I don't think that's unfair.

 

[DandyDon]

It would be great time for this practice to be abolished, I hate having to "beg" for a decent wage, but I'm skeptic it will happen in my lifetime...

Are you suggesting that those of us who tip should stop?

I think he meant he would prefer that DMs be paid a living wage instead of hoping for tips. As he explained, visitors from overseas and younger divers don't tip, and some Americans don't. It was not discussed in my training, so I didn't think of it at first.

$10/tank? that's near a 30% tip.. you don't tip that amount neither in a 5* superior hotel.. lol... and above.

He's tipping for two divers, so $5/tank each. I tip a little more than that even tho I hate tipping in general. I tip room maids, waiters, porters - including street volunteers like I used to get to my hotel last trip, a guy who saw me struggling and offered to help, and I even tipped one taxi driver last trip for charging me the correct fare and helping with my bags. Well, 10 pesos ain't much, but more than I usually tip taxis.

 

[WetInPortland]

WOW! I guess it's a matter of where you're from. I usually pay around $30/tank for boat dives although in my hometown it's $50/tank. I don't dive at home in part because of this (I live on the gulf side of Florida). I drive across the state to the Atlantic or to the Keys where the diving is better and the boats charge around $30/tank. The only time I've paid the prices you're paying was when I dove the Epcot DiveQuest aquarium.

WOW back at ya. When I dive West Palm Beach, it's at least $65/tank, and that's with a group discount. When I've checked prices online, Jupiter is similar (although I've not dived there). Even $50 in Largo sounds cheap, because you have to go so far offshore to get to most dive sites. Where are you diving for $30/tank?!

 

[WetInPortland]

... and I even tipped one taxi driver last trip for charging me the correct fare and helping with my bags. Well, 10 pesos ain't much, but more than I usually tip taxis.

As a Cozumeleño, I'd like to ask a favor. We have a problem with some taxi drivers charging outrageous fares. Could you please tip a little more for the ones that are doing the right thing? Custom (and it is a custom, not a requirement) is about 10% of the fare if the driver is helping you with your bags. You didn't say which hotel, so just as an example I'll use a 200 peso fare, which would be typical from the ferry pier to the middle of the south hotel zone. 10% would be $20 pesos, or about $1.05 USD today, versus your $10 pesos, which is a little more than $.50.

And if you were to give him $100 pesos ($5.26 USD) and ask for his phone number, you'd likely be able to call him up whenever you needed another ride, and be reasonably certain to get a fair fare . (I wouldn't tip $100 pesos on every ride, but might do $10 - $20 pesos with no bags to know that I'm working with someone honest.) THANKS!

 

[flyboy08]

Never understood the confusion over taxi price/tipping....at the end of the day, as Wet points out above....where talking pennies here! Unless of course you ask the driver to circumnavigate the island twice

 

[George Monnat Jr]

I'm not sure I'm following you. We're talking about a 365 scuba destination, the business is run the whole year (with peaks and whatever, but it's not that they stops for months). The average prices to dive there is well above the common Mexican/Cozumel salary and the DM's/Guides are hired proportionally to the size of the shop.
If with the average price you pay in Cozumel the shop is not paying adequately the DM's/Guides, then there's definitively something wrong (the shop owner is a greedy b*) and it deserves to close his activity.
By tipping you're only boosting this bad behavior: you're giving money to the greedy owner that will continue to do his affairs, while the DM's/Guide have to rely on a uncertain income based on the customers kindness.

It doesn't mean that you should never tip.. it only means that a tip should never been seen as an additional amount at the top of what you have already paid. This whole $10/day is IMO stupid and dangerous (for the reasons I've explained above). Tips should be given for the extraordinary not for the ordinary.

My point is that whatever wage increase goes to employees will be paid by the customers. You stated that customers were already paying a lot of money, well increase wages and customers will pay more money. If the employer raises wages, then the customers pay more without the option of rewarding good service - they pay the extra money no matter what. With tips, customers decide how well the DM performed and tip accordingly. The DM treats the customers well, then the DM gets more money.

Tipping boosts good behavior. It's the incentive to treat the customers well. Paying higher tips does not increase bad behavior, it encourages the DMs to treat customers nicer. Also, tips don't go to, " the greedy owner," it's the only way for me as a customer to directly hand money to the DMs (and boat captain) as thank you for your excellent work and remember me next time. It's not based on, "customers kindness" but the DMs' kindness, as in how well they treat the customers.

If you think tipping well for good service is stupid, that's your business. Many others disagree with you, including this DM.

 

[George Monnat Jr]

I am friends with a successful businessman in the area who seems to take a different vewpoint on tipping. I tried tipping his VERY capable employees and they turned me down. Not allowed to take tips. I have to think that they were being paid well because they were smart, good at what they did and provided great service. Seems like the owner wanted the employees working for him, not for his customers.

That's a perfectly legit and valid business model. The psychological hurdle is the higher up front costs. Dive shops are small businesses in a very competitive market (and go out of business all the time - there aren't really any 1%ers running dive shops), so if their per tank or class prices are higher than competitors because of their higher wages to non-tipped DMs, then customers will be incentivized to go to the cheaper shops. Now if those cheaper shops treat them poorly, then they'll go back to the more expensive one for better service. However, if the cheaper shop has good service, the customers tip the DMs (incentivizing the DMs to continue treating customers well), and the customers return, then the more expensive shop doesn't have a chance to showcase their better service.