"I realize it's a big money maker for the agencies but I think more divers would consider further education if it were offered in fewer courses."
"To bring this into the sphere of the
business of diving, do you think there is still a market at the start for longer, more in depth courses at the beginning, or have we got to cater only to people in a time-compressed fashion?"
"GUE does their REC 1 course, which is a much more in depth course than the typical OW course. They don't run very many of these, but they do successfully run them."
It's not exactly 'at the beginning,' but I've wondered why the NAUI Master Scuba Diver course/cert. isn't much more sought after. As it has been explained on this forum in the past, the original intent was to instill Instructor level knowledge & skill, minus those aspects specific to teaching, to a student. But PADI took the term. & applied it to a very different kind of certification, & I believe some other agencies have done likewise. I wonder how many PADI MSD's there are to every NAUI MSD?
How many divers consider or enroll in Dive Master courses in pursuit of the same sort of goal the NAUI Master Scuba Diver course was intended to provide? Is the issue that NAUI has fallen so far off the radar in many places? (Which would probably be an interesting study in business practices in its own right!).
I wonder if perhaps such a program might 'sell better' if it were taught in a region where the instruction was obviously of practical value. There's an example - July 7, 2014, California Diver Magazine online posted an article ,
LA County Scuba's Advanced Diver Program Provides An Exceptional Value, Quality Education. But notice that in that program, they also did this:
"LA County Scuba’s Advanced Diver Program (ADP) spans 10 weeks over each summer, includes over 100 hours of formal training (including at least 14 open water dives), and has been the most well-respected recreational dive training program since its inception in 1964. Upon completion, students definitely fulfill the skills and qualifications of almost anyone’s definition of an advanced diver, and receive an LA County Scuba C-card to that effect. Students can also be qualified as NAUI Master Divers, and have the opportunity to receive their NAUI Nitrox and Rescue Diver certifications during the program."
So, people
can pick up 3 different certifications along the way, and some people like that. Nitrox is useful, and Rescue needful if one ever does pursue teaching scuba.
So, maybe there's a market for such training, in areas with difficult local diving, but from what I understand this course is an excellent value, and thus might not be a good cash cow unless it gave you an 'in' to sell students exposure protection, BP/W replacements for their BCDs, wrist computers, non-split fins or whatever '2nd generation gear purchases' divers getting more seasoned might make. Plus the 1st gear sets you might sell.
Richard.