DIVE LOCAL – A Community Effort
Building a Local Diving Community
Message to the Local Divers
By Gene Muchanski, Executive Director,
Dive Industry Association, Inc.

Introduction to Section II

 Our purpose for being in business as a Marketing and Trade Association is to Build a Better Diving Industry, One Member at a Time.  Our Mission is to bring buyers & sellers together for mutual benefit, but to accomplish our mission we first had to lay a foundation for how the business of diving operates in our industry.  The heartbeat of the Global Diving Community lies in the creation and maintenance of Local Diving Communities across the globe.  The four pillars of each Local Diving Community that create and maintain the market we serve were discussed in articles published by The Dive Industry Professional. 

The Four Pillars of The Local Diving Community:

• Dive Stores
• Dive Instructors
• Dive Boats
• Dive Clubs

Our Message to The Local Diving Community:  Our second series of articles will be about the message we are creating to attract new divers and maintain the current population of certified divers.  It is our intent to do more than just create more certified divers.  Our mission is to show how scuba diving and diving related activities can become a lifetime recreation.  Our message to the general public is:  Learn to Dive – Buy Your Gear – Go Diving – Stay Active.  Here is an introduction to the articles we will be sharing with the industry over the next four months. 

Our Message to The Local Diving Community:

• Learn to Dive
• Buy Your Gear
• Go Diving
• Stay Active

Learn to Dive:  To safely enjoy the underwater world with scuba diving equipment it is necessary to take scuba diving lessons from a certified Scuba Diving Instructor.  The lessons include classroom instruction, scuba training in confined water (usually a swimming pool), and scuba training dives in the open water environment (a river, lake, quarry, or ocean).  We will discuss the certification agencies that exist in the global diving community and the instructors who affiliate with these agencies.  Our article hopes to present all of the various options that are available to the non-diver in order to become scuba certified.

Besides educating the general public about the process of becoming certified, I believe it is important to explain why a person needs to become certified as a diver before they can purchase their gear and participate in the recreation.  We think it is important to prepare potential scuba students as to what will be required of them to participate and what educational outcomes they will have gained by completing a scuba diving certification course.  The Dive Industry Association is asking the Global Diving Business Network to assist us with information that will help us paint a clear picture of what potential scuba diving students can expect in a scuba course, and how to start the process of becoming certified.

Buy Your Gear:  You can’t go diving if you don’t have gear.  Of course you can buy it, rent it, or borrow it from a friend.  There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these and we will discuss that.  In the 57 years that I have been a certified diver, I have never known the diving industry to come to an agreement about what pieces of scuba diving equipment should be purchased as opposed to rented.  Another issue that has been discussed, debated, and argued about is when a scuba diver should purchase their own gear.  This article will cover as many of the options as it takes to help the newly enrolled or certified diver to make the purchasing decision that is best for them. 

Go Diving:  It is fair to say that most of the people who take scuba diving lessons want to go diving.  Once a person becomes a certified diver, the world of possibilities opens up to them like they could never have imagined.  Our article will give the reader information about dive destinations worldwide.  We will show them where to dive, how to arrange their diving experience, how to get there, and what to do when they are there.  We will cover local diving, Caribbean diving, and exotic dive destinations.  We will explain resort destinations, dive resorts, dive operators, and liveaboard options.  I believe it is important to cover topics about individual dive trips, booking with a Dive Travel Wholesaler or a Dive Travel Specialist, and joining a group dive trip.

Stay Active:  It only takes a single scuba instructor to certify a new diver, but it takes an entire Local Diving Community to keep a scuba diver active.  After all, scuba diving is a social recreation. There are many ways to keep divers diving but it takes continual marketing efforts to help divers realize what their many options are.  I believe that our industry as a whole, has been myopically focused on certifying new divers and then abandoning them once they get their c-card.  Research tells us that divers who get certified and then stop diving have very little good to say about their training or about the recreation.  Rarely will they recommend scuba diving to their friends if they, themselves have dropped out.  The secret is to keep divers diving.

If you look at the four pillars of the local diving communities, you can see that each play a vital role in keeping divers active.  When a diver affiliates with their local dive store, they have continuing education, equipment purchases and rentals, local boat dives, group dive trips, and equipment maintenance services available to them.  Local diving instructors provide continuing education courses.  Dive boat operators are the champions of local diving.  Local diving is still the best way to keep divers active.  Dive clubs conduct meetings, seminars, workshops, group travel, and social activities.  We will cover all of those options in our article about staying active.

There are many other ways to stay active in diving and keep current with what is going on in the community.  We plan to discuss the advantages of going to local consumer dive shows and national trade shows.  We think that shows and events are the best way to charge you trade professional and certified diver batteries.  There are plenty of print magazines we will recommend that divers can subscribe to and of course, there are numerous digital magazines available online.  Many divers stay active by frequenting social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest.  We will explore social media as it applies to keeping divers active. 

A great way to keep divers actively involved in the recreation is to show them how to develop hobbies or interests in subjects that could be performed in conjunction with diving.  We will explore becoming knowledgeable in photography, wreck diving, metal detecting, environmental work, non-profit volunteering, and numerous other activities.  Developing a hobby in a diving related activity is one sure way to remain active.  Diving historians and collectors of diving equipment or magazines acquire a historical perspective of the diving industry that can be shared with divers around the world through seminars, workshops, and published articles.  We will try to include all of those options as we explore ways to keep divers active.

By writing about our message to the local diving community we are doing something more than trying to grow and maintain the global diving community.  We are referring customers to the four pillars of the Local Diving Communities.  And who benefits from that besides the local dive stores, dive boats, dive clubs, and Instructors?  All of the producers of diving equipment, training, travel, and lifestyle products benefit.  We could not do our job of referring the programs, products, and services to divers who are needing them unless we maintained a current database of all the producers and sellers of these products.  Because of our continual research in the diving industry and the business relationships we have developed in the Global Diving Business Network, we are able to refer customers to the products and companies they need. 

We will promote diving and diving related programs, products, and services and the dive businesses that produce and sell them, through our Weekly News press release service and our monthly trade magazine The Dive Industry Professional.  Our major referral source for active dive consumers is our Annual Trade Directory that is updated monthly.  Although our database of over 8,000 dive industry businesses is quite extensive and up-to-date, our ability to refer products and dive businesses is limited by our knowledge and experience with a select number of vendors.  Current members of the Dive Industry Association have a competitive advantage in our referral process because we can provide and promote current contact information and active hot links to their websites, stores, and ordering centers.  A big part of our series on our marketing message to consumers is going to be how they can reach the businesses that provide the programs, products, and services they need, want, and can afford.

We are inviting all 8,000 + dive businesses and Dive Industry Professionals to join our Global Diving Business Network to acquire new divers, retain customers, and serve the market that has been built over the years.  Your annual commitment to this cooperative marketing effort is only $125 per year, through your membership in the Dive Industry Association.  Our growth strategy for the industry has plans for expansion as we approach 1,000 members and again at 2,000 members.  We are looking forward to working with you today.

For more information on becoming a Member in our Global Diving Business Network, contact Gene Muchanski, Executive Director, Dive Industry Association, Inc., 2294 Botanica Circle, West Melbourne, FL.  Phone 321-914-3778. Email: gene@diveindustry.net  web: www.diveindustry.net

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