Tipping the boat crew - conventions around the world?

[RAD Diver]

Yes, I think this is normal service, therefore not particularly deserving of a tip. My opinion.

A few examples where we did tip: 1) in a night dive I lost my air and the DM got me breathing again and up to the surface safely; 2) my wife lost touch with the ladder as she was taking off her fins and the Captain jumped and and swam out to her and towed her back in.

Last night a taxi brought us home and he helped not at all with our bags. Think he got a tip? Many Americans would tip in such a situation, but I don't.

We have sometimes given tips on liveaboards and on day boats "just because". But mostly I want to make an effort to single out those who really did something above and beyond normal service.

- Bill

OK so I have to save your life to get a tip I get it, by the way what is your life worth, just so I know if I do save it I'm getting my $$ worth.
And yes I have had to save a couple of divers.
By the way I don't get paid to mate it is all tips,(which also includes off season maintenance) glad I don't need them to live on & do it for fun, also glad I don't do it in San Fran.

 

[Mike]

In Mexico they make $50 a week. I don't tip to US standards in Mexico, although you may if you want.

Aq

No Mexican workers living and working in the tourist zones where you will interact with them make $50 a week, nor could live on $200 a month.

Some reading for you :

Misreading Mexico by Ravi Agrawal
Here’s some trivia. Which of these countries has the highest average income: India, China, Brazil or Mexico? If you guessed Brazil, you’d be wrong. And if you guessed India or China, you’d be way off: even if you combine the incomes of the average Indian and Chinese you wouldn’t reach the $15,000 annual purchasing power of the average Mexican.

Indeed, Mexico’s economy has a number of strengths. It is the 14th largest in the world. If you take into account purchasing power, it is the 11th largest economy – larger than Canada, Turkey, and Indonesia.

There are a lot more jobs in Mexico than peasant farmer with no shoes, living in a village with no running water or electricity. Mexico produces more engineers per capita than any other country in the world today. You're crazy if you think the people you interact with in your travels are making $200 a month and live in a shack for $4.00 a month, are sewing their own clothes made out of wool from a sheep they keep in a pen under their bed.

I'd like to watch you on a dive boat hand a dive master a nickel for a tip because everybody in Mexico makes according to you .75 cents an hour.

 

[theduckguru]

True, and your not going to find a worker in a Mexican resort area earning what a resort worker in Las Vegas earns. The economic scales are different and tipping levels differ in my view, although I have seen many Americans tipping in 3rd world areas like they were in NYC, I choose not to. Fortunately, its still customary that the amount of a tip is the patron's decision.

 

[Mike]

Again... who ever said you had to? A nice adequate tip based on the location you're at is all that is required. You don't need to rip off a hunski for a $4.00 taxi ride. Don't be jealous of some American tipping in a 3rd world country like they were in NYC. Don't be jealous of somebody spreading the love, spreading the wealth, somebody doing something nice doesn't make you look bad.

 

[juicyblue]

In Australia - No need to tip the DM, Captain or Crew. It would honestly never even occur to me do so, and there will definitely be no offence taken if you don't.

In Thailand - We generally tip the Captain/Boat crew, but not the DM's. That's we we've been advised by both the dive schools we dived with on Samui and Koh Tao. Generally, the boat crew are locals and the DM's are Western. I'm assuming that it's because the DM's are paid more?

 

[Quero]

juicyblue, it may be different over in the Gulf as compared to the Andaman side of Thailand (though I don't see why), but here on the west coast you are welcome to tip both the boat crew and the dive staff that work with you. Generally speaking, there's a tip box for the boat that is only for the boat crew and is not divided with the dive staff. If you wish to tip your DM, you would do that individually and not through the tip box. Maybe you just misunderstood?

BTW, westerners don't get paid more than Thais as a general rule, but instructors do get paid more than DMs, and most westerners are instructors while most DMs are Thais. Western instructors may do DM jobs when they are not needed to teach courses, though.

 

[theduckguru]

Again... who ever said you had to? A nice adequate tip based on the location you're at is all that is required. You don't need to rip off a hunski for a $4.00 taxi ride. Don't be jealous of some American tipping in a 3rd world country like they were in NYC. Don't be jealous of somebody spreading the love, spreading the wealth, somebody doing something nice doesn't make you look bad.

. LOL, love, yea right. The wife might put end to dive trips if I start spreading love.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Mike and theduckguru bring to mind an interesting point. It's difficult to judge how financially well-off a service industry worker is in a specific region when there is great disparity in countries like Mexico. Yeah, I know several Mexican lawyers as well as a Mexican petroleum engineer who earn salaries that are nearly what they might earn in the US (actually, the petroleum engineer is currently working in the US, earning boatloads, I am envious to say). But there's also great poverty in Mexico. I have no idea where dive crew fall in this spectrum, but I suspect divemastering is considered a pretty decent occupation in some areas. As I said earlier, the advice on tipping given in guidebooks may not fit well with what's expected at dive operations.

As an interesting side note, one might ask a philosophical question of whether there is anything inherently wrong with dive crew in some less-developed country earning (with tips) far more, relative to their national average, than dive crew in a more-developed country relative to that country's national average. Maybe it's relatively lucrative to be a divemaster in some less-developed parts of the world (and I suspect it is), even though one could potentially starve by doing nothing but divemastering in the US. Is that wrong? The dive industry can do good things for a country's economy (not to mention ecology, by encouraging the preservation of reefs, etc.).

I believe one has to make a judgment call on the spot as to what the standard of living is where you are diving (not necessarily lumping a whole country together as though the standard of living is uniform) and what kind of operation it is. If the dive operation gets a lot of well-heeled international visitors, then it's pretty certain that the practice of tipping is well established. If the dive operation gets a lot of vagabond backpackers, then maybe tips are not expected.

 

[Mike]

Great points. I have friends who are blue collar dirty finger nail people such as a plumber who has told me stories of doctors being upset when they get the bill and do the math and figure out the plumber makes more per hour than the doctor. They have had customers get extremely upset, even lecturing them about how they went to school for x amount of years, racked up huge debt in loans, how dare they make this amount of money being a dumb, dirty, uneducated person. I don't deny anyone from earning what they are worth. There should be no caps on the rewards for hard work, innovation, or resourcefulness.

 

[Glenn01]

I've made it a point to dive with the same outfit when, for example, in Roatan and they're real professionals. I have come to know the staff and they know me, where I like to go, etc. Makes for a much better experience all around IMO. (And with so many dive sites there, there's always something new...). I've learned to tip up front. It seems to improve the overall service experience (and I like "service with a smile" particularly when on holiday). Of course, it's not without the risk of tipping and not getting the expected service level but this has not been my experience. In Canada, we work with a $3/dive, in Honduras it's $5 - $10, depending on service. I've topped up the tip after really good service too.