Editorial – May 2026

Posted on May 17, 2026 by Gene Muchanski

Integrating the Diving Community
by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

The main purpose of Industry Planners is to identify industry challenges and create a plan to overcome them.  Last month’s editorial talked about Defining the Global Diving Community. Once we define the universe we work in, it’s easy to see the individual components for what and who they are.   Through observation and research, planners can identify an industry’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.  Knowing what is right and wrong with the recreational diving industry is not the end goal.  It is only the beginning of what we call an opportunity to take corrective action.

The month of May is historically the official beginning of the scuba diving season.  Obviously, many things have changed in the last 20 years in the recreational scuba diving industry, but rather than rehash the problems, trends, and paradigms of the past, let’s look at the Global Diving Industry from the current perspective of a recreation that is recovering and self-correcting itself after the historical economic downturn caused by the covid pandemic.  There is no question that the diving industry is improving today and is starting to grow again.  However, growth looks a little different than it did in the past.  That might be the good news.  The bad news is that we are bringing some of our negative baggage with us into the new economic recovery.

The diving industry can grow and will succeed in the future if Dive Industry Professionals understand and learn how to control and work around fragmentation, segmentation, and integration.

Fragmentation: The global diving industry has always been fragmented.  It still is.  In my opinion, that has been the industry’s biggest downfall.  Fragmentation is the breaking down of a single unit.  The unit could be a company or an industry.  Fragments are pieces of a whole and do not usually work together.  Fragmentation causes us to work alone in silo models, and it results in duplication of effort across the industry spectrum.  The diving industry, as a single entity, should never condone fragmentation and should always promote unity.

Segmentation: Segments are pieces of a whole.  Segmentation is the process of researching, studying, and processing pieces of a unit as it applies to the whole.   It makes good business sense to work with segments of an industry to learn more about their role in and contribution to the whole.  The diving industry has many segments, or stakeholder groups as we call them.  You can think of equipment manufacturing, dive training, and dive travel as important segments of the industry.  You can also think of swimming, snorkeling, freediving, spearfishing, scuba diving, and technical diving as important segments of the recreational diving industry.  It doesn’t matter how you use segmentation to help you define or work with various segments in the diving industry.  The important point to remember is that all of these segments are part of a bigger whole.

Integration: Integration is the process of bringing together components, systems, and segments into a functioning entity.  Integrating various segments is more than a collection of unrelated businesses or concepts.  Integration is all about individual segments that work harmoniously together to produce a common outcome.  Much like the human body that is made up of many organs and body parts, an industry is an entity that is made up of many individual businesses that work together to supply programs, products, and services to consumers who need, want, and can afford them.

How Integration Applies to the Diving Industry:  I can think of three ways where integration would help the diving industry to grow in the 21st century. The first way is stakeholder integration.  The second is market integration.  The third is shows & events integration.

Stakeholder Integration: The old way of doing business in the diving industry was to focus on what your stakeholder group was designed to do.  Teaching diving, selling gear, and selling travel were isolated events, performed by separated, disengaged stakeholder groups.  This is 20th Century silo behavior. The 21st Century model is to adopt an industry-wide paradigm that recommends a Learn to Dive – Buy Your Gear – Go Diving – Stay Active approach.  This new way of creating active scuba divers gives all stakeholder groups a role to play in the customer journey of a recreational diver.   Dive Industry Teaching Professionals teach a person to dive.  Dive Industry Equipment Advisors help the newly enrolled diving student to select and purchase their gear.  Dive Industry Travel Advisors arrange travel plans for the diving community participants.  Dive Industry Lifestyle Advisors keep people active in the global diving community.

Diving Segment Integration:  Using the word SCUBA to describe the Diving Industry is so 20th Century thinking, or as my friends say, “So last Tuesday.”  Even calling us the diving industry is becoming slowly outdated.  We are watermen and waterwomen.  We all have water as our common element, but our tribe engages in swimming, snorkeling, freediving, scuba diving, rebreather diving, technical diving, and lifeguarding, water rescue, and mermaid diving.  How about water polo and underwater hockey?  Where do they fit it? 

The 20th Century way would be to fragment these segments and start their own niche community.  Actually, the Technical Diving Community and the Freediving Community have started that process with their own niche Trade Shows & Events.  Which is OK to some extent but is starting to show signs of limitation and lack of impact.  The 21st Century model would be to combine marketing efforts and an integrated budget when and where possible.  Dive resort destinations are making incredible progress with integrating many different watersports segments in their business.  The diving industry should make this a high priority to develop ideas, plans, and strategies to generate ideas along these lines.

Shows & Events Integration: Dive Shows & Events are coming back.  We have been following the exhibitor numbers for over twenty years and have mapped the highs and lows of trade and consumer dive shows.  Knowing that shows and events are more than just exhibitors, we also look at and record seminars, sponsors, and total attendee numbers where we can.  We know what components make dive shows successful or not.  Now all we have to do is get show producers to think out-of-the-box and try some new ideas.  Call me Don Quixote, but I think we can do it.

Integrating Shows & Events: Shows & Events are big business.  They are capitally intensive to own and operate, but says Rhonda Abrams, in her book, Trade Show In A Day, “Trade Shows Work.”  I agree with Rhonda.  Trade shows do work, but they only work if the exhibitors and attendees are properly matched. 

There are three types of shows & events in the diving industry.  The trade show, the consumer shows, and the professional development conference.  The trade show features wholesale exhibitors in the exhibit hall who sell to qualified retail buyers.  A consumer show features exhibitors in the exhibit hall who sell to the attendees.  A professional development conference is where the attendees are there primarily for the educational seminars and workshops.

My 21st Century model would have sections of like-mind exhibitors in the exhibit hall.  The sections would be diving equipment, training, travel, services, apparel, and non-profits, amongst others.  The exhibit hall would also have a technical section, an underwater imaging center, and a business technology section.  Much like what we have today.  The seminars and workshops would also be what we have become accustomed to.  Specific seminars for specific target groups of divers, instructors, retailers, and business staff personnel.

The difference I would propose to the show producers in the 21st Century would be to add a consumer component to our Trade Shows and a wholesale component to our Consumer Shows.  The reason being is that this approach is consumer-centric and in line with the way modern day wholesaler and retailer buyers make their purchasing decisions today.  I recently surveyed Qualified Retail Buyers in a territory where a consumer dive show was planned.  When asked if the retail business community was going to attend the dive show in their territory they responded no, because it was a consumer show and therefore had nothing that was of interest to them.  Even though there were hundreds of their vendors who were exhibiting at the show, they didn’t feel like the show had value for them.  Unfortunately for the show producers, by not including the local retailers in their show plans, they did not have the support of the local retailers and their customers for that matter.  Consequently, the local retailers made plans for classes and trips during time the show was scheduled, which meant that fewer consumers made plans to attend the show.

My suggestion is to invite Dive Retailers of the local diving community to their shows & events.  Exhibiting vendors could schedule sales rep meetings with their local dealers.  By adding a trade component to a consumer dive show, the show producers would be in a position to add significant seminar space for professional trade development. An integrated trade and consumer dive show is a great way to enhance regional market penetration and increase market share, at a fraction of the addition cost.

Become a Member of our Global Diving Business Network: Annual Membership in the Dive Industry Association is $125 and includes placement in a number of Trade Directories and websites.  Our organization uses websites and directories in advertising and marketing campaigns to refer business to our members.  By joining our network, you are becoming part of a network that works on your behalf to bring buyers and sellers together for the benefit and growth of the Global Diving Community.  Download a Membership Application today.

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Marketing Messages & Marketing Vehicles

Posted on April 23, 2026 by Gene Muchanski

Marketing Series:
Marketing Messages & Vehicles
by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

Marketing is an art and science that we use in the business world to accomplish many things.  Businesses are created to produce programs, products, and services that people purchase for their everyday needs and wants.  Marketing facilitates the exchange between buyers and sellers.  You can say that marketing was created to connect people with products.  The science of marketing goes much deeper than that, but for right now, this is a good start.

To be a Master at Marketing, one has to understand products, people, and that which connects the two.  From a Product Management perspective, marketers deal with things that are produced, from conception to consumption.  From a Customer Management viewpoint, we have to understand consumer behavior and the buyer’s journey from desire through purchase.  Only after mastering the components of production and consumption, supply and demand, and buyer and seller needs can Degreed Marketing Professionals put together strategic plans that bring the two sides together.

Marketing as a Bridge:  I like to look at sellers and buyers, or as we call them, producers and consumers, as two mountains separated by a valley.  I look at professional marketers as bridge builders who connect buyers to sellers.    Marketing is the bridge we build that connects buyers & sellers.  Traveling on our bridge are marketing vehicles that carry marketing messages to stimulate commerce.  The professional marketing trade is responsible for learning how to create effective marketing messages and selecting the proper marketing vehicles to deliver the messages.  Many of the marketing messages we produce are created using 21st century marketing tools and technologies. And what good would a marketing message be if it couldn’t be delivered in a timely manner to our perspective audience?  Marketing vehicles are tools and technologies that deliver messages to our audience, the prospective buyer.

Marketing Vehicles: Marketing vehicles are designed to carry a plethora of messages in different formats.  It is common in business to use formats that can accommodate print, digital, audio, and face-to-face marketing messages.  While some vehicles are better suited for specific formats, some are actually effective in multiple formats. The choice of which marketing vehicles to use should be based on the buying habits of your prospective customers.  What do they read?  What do they listen to?  Where do they go to get information when they are considering a purchase?  Where do they buy?  When do they buy?  Why do they buy?  These are all things you need to know so you can choose a marketing vehicle they are familiar with and use in their Buyer’s Journey for programs, products, and services you sell.

Marketing Messages:  A professional marketing message is always about the product.  The audience for your message is always the customer.  That’s what marketing does.  It connects people with products.  Don’t kid yourself into thinking otherwise.  You’ll save yourself a lot of pain and discomfort if you realize that businesses are formed to produce products that can be sold.  Businesses market their products to create conversions.  The ultimate conversion is a sale or a donation or the acceptance of an offer.

Company Centric vs Customer Centric: The single most important paradigm shift in marketing is the centricity of the producer-consumer equation.  When the age of consumerism began shortly after World War II, producers created products they believed consumers needed, wanted, and were able to afford.  They hired a Sales Force to move products from their full warehouses to their franchised dealers and onto the final consumer.  Salesmen were trained on features & benefits of their products.  Everything was centered around the producers and their products.  The type of advertising at that time is what we call push advertising.  The sales message originated from the producer to reach the consumer.

Types of Push Advertising: Advertising that was popular in the 20th century was print, radio, television, billboards, and face-to-face selling.  Print advertising dominated as the most popular marketing format for small businesses in the diving industry.  Popular print ads took the form of business cards, brochures, catalogs, and posters.  Direct mail, newspapers, magazines, point-of-sale material, and the Yellow Pages were common vehicles for print advertising.  Print advertising is still popular in the diving industry today, but its effectiveness and potential return on investment must be continually measured, analyzed, and re-strategized for cost effectiveness.

Changing Centricity: The invention of the small computer and the digitization of data has changed the marketing and advertising professions forever.  Dive Industry Marketers, who have adapted in a continually changing business environment these past few years have been able to survive constant change and have learned to actually use it to their advantage.  The first major change in dive industry marketing is that the producer-consumer relationship has become more customer-centric.  Thanks to the introduction of marketing as a profession, the focus is now on the consumer.  Products are designed and produced with input from consumer research.  We no longer train a sales force to push products on an unengaged consumer base.  Our Product Managers in the marketing department interact with potential customers as product advisors.  When customer-desired products are ready for shipment, customer-centric marketing messages are based on satisfying customer needs.  Our marketing and advertising campaigns have changed from a push strategy to a pull strategy.

Inbound Marketing: Prior to the covid pandemic a new marketing paradigm was taking hold of the way businesses market their products to consumers.  In the age of information digitization, consumers were becoming highly skilled at researching things they wanted to purchase.  It got to a point where most consumers were doing more and better marketing than the producers were.   Progressive marketers wanted to be in a position where they could influence a customer’s purchasing decision when they were ready to convert from prospect to customer.  They began mapping customer purchasing paths and became familiar with the various stages that a consumer goes through in their buyer’s journey.  Successful marketing professionals are able to track a consumer’s progress from first contact through becoming a customer lifestyler.   Even if the conversion process is not a quick one, individualized marketing messages can be tailored to the prospective customer throughout their conversion path.

Choosing a Marketing Vehicle: The number one rule of choosing a marketing vehicle to carry your message is choosing the vehicles that your target customer is familiar with and typically uses.  Remember, being a customer-centric marketing professional, you want to use marketing vehicles that appeal to the customer, not just the ones you are familiar with.  The biggest problem the diving industry has been with young, inexperienced marketers how think that all consumers are on their social wavelength.  Obviously, that is not the case, and it will take many years of trial and error to teach them otherwise.  When using new tools and technologies you want to make sure your prospective customer is on the receiving end of your message.  Become a lifelong student of consumer behavior and you will always have a heads-up on communicating with your target audience.

Hybrid Marketing Campaigns: Your professional toolbox should have many tools in it.  Different marketing campaigns for different target customer groups call for the use of different marketing tools and technologies.  Depending on when, where, and with whom you are trying to achieve your marketing outcomes, you may have to use different marketing messages and marketing vehicles to achieve the conversions or outcomes you planned for.  It all depends on your audience.  I think it is wise to use both inbound marketing and outboard marketing campaigns.  There are times when a simple business card works and there are times when you need to use the power of a professional content management system (CMS).

Take the time to learn about the various marketing vehicles that are currently being successfully used in the diving industry and learn how to create simple and effective marketing messages that are measurable.

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Editorial – April 2026

Posted on April 18, 2026 by Gene Muchanski

Defining the Global Diving Community
by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

The first step in any journey is to establish where you are, before you begin.  Then decide where you want to go.  The rest is elementary.  Create a path from Point A to Point B and GO!

As an Industry Planner at the Dive Industry Association, my job is to focus on Building a Better Industry.  It’s a big job, but since no one else is doing it, I have my work cut out for me.  I say that no one else is doing what I do, but that’s not completely accurate.  There are other marketing planners in the diving industry, working for large and small companies that specialize in diving equipment, training, travel, and lifestyle products.  But they work for companies that have their own agenda, based on what they produce and who they sell their products and services to.  Their main purpose is to understand the market their company competes in.  Unfortunately, not every company in the diving industry can individually afford their own Industry Planner, but collectively they could.

The Dive Industry Association developed a plan 25 years ago to Build a Better Industry and since the stakeholder groups at the time were very much fragmented, we decided to build a better industry One Member at a Time.  Fortunately, we didn’t have to do it alone.  Over 500 diving businesses supported our work over 2,000 times.  Because of the hugh industry support we received, our association has been able to define, analyze, and understand our industry in order to be able to help our members navigate through the Global Diving Community, giving them the competitive edge they needed to gain and maintain sufficient market share and profitability.  Along the way, we used consistent terminology to describe the industry so that it made sense to the Dive Industry Professionals who work in the industry.  We use the term Global Diving Community to describe individuals who participate in diving and diving related activity and purchase the programs, products, and services created and distributed by the Global Diving Business Network.

Researching the buyers and sellers in the global diving community has given us an insider’s perspective to our industry’s consumer behavior.  We have a keen perspective as to who is producing diving goods and services, who is distributing and selling them, who is purchasing them and why, and who is still considering themselves as divers or diving instructors, even though they don’t dive any more and are not making any diving and diving related purchases.

As we were conducting our spring-cleaning chores last month we uncovered a number of inactive contacts (see March Editorial – Time For Spring Cleaning).  We cleaned our database and reorganized how we label our contacts.  Without going into too much detail, we followed our Inbound Marketing protocols with our CRM software platform to target market our contacts by their persona and their current point in their customer conversion path as it relates to our company.

Your company should have a general idea of what type of customers you are targeting.   A buyer persona is a profile of your target customer.  By understanding the buyer persona of the contacts in your database, you can gain valuable insight as to the types of messages you should be sending them.

Why do we have to define individuals in the Global Diving Community?  Because not everyone wants to be “sold to.”  Not everyone is your customer.  Not everyone in the world wants to hear about your “cutting edge, unbelievable, super fantastic, available in multiple colors, scuba diving fins” three times a week, every week!   That’s why!  Consumers have needs, and when they want to satisfy their needs, they will go online and search for what they want.  It’s your job as a Dive Industry Professional, working in the Global Diving Business Network, to know who these customers are, what they need, and where they are on their Buyer’s Journey.  You want to be close to them when they are ready to convert.

A Return to Relationship Selling:  It’s time for the diving industry to return to relationship selling.  For all the people who are posting their blogs, emails, reels, and videos please keep it up.  Social media is a great way to create attraction, and if it gets more people interested in diving, that’s great.  For those of us in the business-of-diving, we need to understand consumer behavior and what it takes to help a prospective diver go from contact to contract.  But let’s do our marketing intelligently this time.  Define your audience and target potential customers based on their persona and their needs.  Not your product.

An Opportunity For Dive Stores: If brick-and-mortar Dive Stores ever needed to answer the door to a tremendous renaissance opportunity, now is the time.  The business of diving is about creating relationships with your customers and learning all about their recreational needs. Keeping them close to you while they are actively going through their recreational buyer’s journey is the best thing you can do.  You are there to teach them, advise them, and mentor them.  If you build your business relationship correctly, they will be there for you when it’s conversion time.  If you are worried about your competitors or vendors selling directly to your customers, remember that you have the advantage of relationship, proximity, and recency in your favor.  That’s priceless.

Learn To Target Market:  Large diving companies who are trying, but failing, to sell directly to the end user are using the “spaghetti model” of marketing.  Throw everything at the public and see what sticks.  They believe the more contacts they have, the more business they will get.  That’s not true.  Maybe their junior marketing influencers just don’t know the difference between impressions, contacts, leads, marketing leads, sales leads, customers, repeat customers, and lifestylers?  Inbound marketers in the diving industry are smart to define their prospects according to their target personas and target market their contacts according to their needs and their position in the customer conversion process.  If any of this makes sense to you, I invite you to learn more about what we do at the Dive Industry Association.

Become a Member of our Global Diving Business Network: Annual Membership in the Dive Industry Association is $125 and includes placement in a number of Trade Directories and websites.  Our organization uses websites and directories in advertising and marketing campaigns to refer business to our members.  By joining our network, you are becoming part of a network that works on your behalf to bring buyers and sellers together for the benefit and growth of the Global Diving Community.  Download a Membership Application today.

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DIA Marketing Series

Posted on March 30, 2026 by Gene Muchanski

Marketing Series:
The Value of Marketing
by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

When we survey Dive Industry Professionals in the Global Diving Business Network about their five most important business needs, something to do with marketing almost always comes up as one of their top needs.  As a degreed marketing professional, I understand the reasons why.  The business of diving is probably the most misunderstood concept in the global diving community.  Marketing plays a large role in running a successful business in the world of diving.  For those of us who work in the business of diving, the concept, value, and mechanics of marketing has to be studied, understood, applied, and mastered in order to bring our businesses and the industry to its next level of growth, success, and sustainability.

Diving is an Activity: Diving is a popular global activity.  As an industry, we’ve come a long way from the early days of SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) Diving.  There are many different types of diving and diving related activities, such as swimming, snorkeling, freediving, spearfishing, scuba diving, rebreather diving, technical diving, and surface supplied diving.  These are the people who make up the Global Diving Community.  Divers use different pieces of equipment and undergo different types of training for different types of diving:  sport, recreational, educational, medical, scientific, military, commercial, and public safety.  These are the components of the Global Diving Industry.

The Business of Diving: Diving is an equipment-intensive activity.  It is also an activity that requires training and certification prior to commencement.  There are a number of businesses in various industries that specialize in producing, distributing, and selling the programs, products, and services divers need to participate in diving activities.  They are produced by businesses in the Global Diving Business Network.

The Diving Industry:  The diving industry brings buyers and sellers of diving equipment, training, travel, and lifestyle products together by creating marketplaces that facilitate the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer.

The Market: The market for diving programs, products and services consists of buyers, sellers, the items to be sold, and the place where the exchange takes place.  So marketing is everything we do to make the transaction from seller to buyer possible.  From a Product Management perspective, I like to think of marketing as the process that moves products from conception to consumption.  

The Science & Art of Marketing: When I work with clients on their marketing issues, I prefer to simplify the process by dealing with marketing related issues in a simple three-step process that addresses three components of marketing.  The components are Product – Customer – Marketing.  The three steps for these components are Product Management, Customer Management, and Marketing Management.

Product Management: Product Management delas with programs, products, and services, so let’s refer to them all as products.  Product marketing deals with the life cycle of a product from conception to consumption.  Product Management has a very important role in the supply chain.  The three components are Product – Customer – Marketing.  The marketing focus is to create products that customers need, want, and can afford.  We start with the final outcome in mind (a customer conversion) by building products for specific customer needs.   The ultimate customer conversion is a purchase.  By building the correct products, our customer conversion process time should be reduced.

Customer Management: Consumer Research is an important part of the marketing job.  Marketers spend a great deal of time building customer personas.  We recommend the use of CRMs in every marketing department. Customer Relationship Management software will assist you in defining your ideal customer persona and track your customers’ journey through their conversion process.  The three components are Product – Customer – Marketing.  The difference with customer management is that our focus is on the customer throughout their customer purchase path and lifestyle loop.  Customer centricity is a popular 21st century paradigm.

Marketing Management: Marketing plays a key role in the creation of products that have a high potential for sales success.  They are also responsible for identifying potential customers for their products.  These are marketing responsibilities, internally within the company.  When it comes to external marketing responsibilities, marketing creates messages about the product and selects various marketing vehicles to deliver the messages to select customer personas.  Basically, marketing’s job is to bring buyers and sellers together to facilitate a match between a customer and a product.  Marketing’s job is to connect people with products.

Marketing as a Bridge Between Buyer and Seller: I like to think of external marketing efforts as a bridge that connects buyers with sellers.  The consumer conversion pathway on that bridge is the roadway that marketing vehicles travel on, carrying their marketing messages about the products their company sells.  Depending on how well marketing has done their job identifying prospective consumer personas, a successful conversion may not take place on the first bridge crossing.

Marketing’s Call To Action: When the Science of Marketing was first conceived, Marketers were responsible for creating and carrying marketing messages to prospective consumers, thereby paving the way for future sales.  In today’s digital economy, there is no reason why Marketing should be restricted to only paving the way for sales.  With our understanding of the Consumer Purchasing Journey and the effectiveness of Customer Relationship Management software, Professional Marketers should be able to shorten the Buyer’s Journey with an effective inbound marketing campaign and be able to achieve successful customer conversion outcomes.  This is where marketing as a science becomes marketing as an art. 

Marketing Strategy: If you are still conducting your sales and marketing like you did in the 20th Century, it’s time to stop and reboot.  If you are looking for the next, new shiny object or silver bullet to increase your sales – STOP LOOKING.  If you are thinking about doing what you think everyone else is doing – STOP.  Everyone is not doing it, and those who are, are not getting anywhere.  It’s time for 21st century tools and technologies that will help you master the art and science of 21st century consumer behavior.  It’s about putting a 21st century GPS marketing device on the outcome you want to achieve and launching 21st century marketing tool to hit your target.

Keep Your Marketing Simple:

 

 

 

We are in the business of bringing buyers & sellers together.  Marketing is about connecting people with products.  Good marketing is about making integrated strategy look simple.  Great marketing is about using modern marketing tools and technologies to make your job easier and more productive.

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2026 Industry-Wide Dive Retail Survey

Posted on March 26, 2026 by Gene Muchanski

Dive Retail Survey – 2026
by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

In conjunction with the Dive Industry Retail Association, the Dive Industry Foundation is conducting its annual Industry-Wide Dive Retail Survey.  We are asking all Dive Retailers to download a copy of our survey, fill it out to the best of their ability, keep a copy on file, and email or direct mail a copy to the Foundation’s office in West Melbourne, Florida.  We ask that each retailer keep a copy on file so they can update and resubmit it next year.

The Survey’s History: We first published the Dive Retail Survey in 2002.  We have conducted the survey at key points in the past 24 years.  Over 80 dive stores have completed the survey since we first began.   The data we have received, compiled, and analyzed has helped industry planners better serve the needs of the Global Diving Business Network. A full, written report of the 2002 retail survey was published and is available to any retailer who participates in the survey.  A full 2026 survey report will also be published for the participants.  A general article about our findings and its significance to the Global Diving Community will be published in our marketing materials and in our monthly trade magazine, The Dive Industry Professional.

Confidentiality of the Survey: The survey questions we ask in the survey are compiled by our research team and all individual answers and sources are not shared within the industry.  We collect data to compile, analyze, and group together information into ranges, averages, modes, and trends.  As a life-long businessman, I can understand an entrepreneur’s reluctance to disclose sensitive information like business financials, especially if you don’t personally know the researcher.  But as a Dive Industry Planner and Marketing Consultant in the Diving Industry for over 40 years, I can assure you that this very important data we are collecting is simply “numbers on a page” for the research we are conducting.  Individual numbers only have meaning to us as we compile, analyze, and organize collective data that helps us understand industry averages and trends on the whole.  Your business information is safe with us as in any Consultant/Client relationship.

The Purpose of the Survey: The purpose of the survey is to establish a baseline of retail dive store activity and measure outcomes of past retail business activity.  The data collected helps our Foundation to better understand the retail stakeholder group, sets a baseline for trends and average norms in business operations, sales, service, training, and travel.  We were able to establish ranges, averages, norms, and trends for sales, certifications, and travel activities in the retail sector of the diving industry.  We collect data that supports the retail community’s industry engagement, and professional development activities.  By asking the retail sector about their five greatest needs in the diving industry, we are able to create strategic plans that contain actionable items we can implement to achieve industry goals and objectives.  Collecting data from active dive store retailers allows industry planners to measure key results and objectives to see if we are achieving our planned goals and objectives for industry growth and success.

Survey Component – Contact Information: The first part of the survey is contact information.  We verify that each dive store is currently in business, as a dive retailer.  We publish a list of active dive stores, by territory in the United States on our DIVE LOCAL website.

Survey Component – Survey Questions:  Our survey questions pertain to the size and scope of your physical location and operation.  We look at your profit centers of equipment sales & services, training courses, club, charter, and travel activities.  We ask about the size of your staff and the extent of your business preparedness and your continuing business professional development.

Survey Component – Top 5 Business Needs:  The most important part of the survey is asking Retailers about what their 5 greatest business needs in the diving industry are.  With what we know today about modern marketing tools and technologies, we have sophisticated technology at our disposal to evaluate current industry needs, but we first have to know what our customers’ needs are.  Books like Measure What Matters, by John Doerr teach us that we can’t analyze what we don’t measure.  John’s mantra is, “It takes a team to win.”  It should be our industry’s mantra also.

Our Strategic Plan: Our strategic objective for the Global Diving Industry is to get Dive Store Retailers to become more engaged in the industry.  We are asking all Retailers to complete the 2026 Industry-Wide Dive Retail Survey.  Our research team will compile the results, and organize the data into groups, modes, ranges, and averages.  Once we have compiled the results, our volunteer Retail Committee will work on a strategic plan to identify and address the most significant industry strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the retail sector.  The Retail Committee will conduct roundtable discussions to recommend possible actionable items that could achieve our goals and planned objectives.  The Team will be responsible for creating OKR’s (objectives and key results) that can be measured to ensure we are achieving our planned industry objectives.  We will continue to measure our results and course-correct as necessary.

The Bigger Picture: Conducting a Retail Survey is not the end-goal.  It is only the beginning.  The Retail Sector in the Global Diving Community is the center of the industry’s economic activity and development.  It is where the supply chain meets consumer demand.  Retail activity affects the success of the supply chain and the future of the demand chain.  For our industry to be successful and sustainable, our industry needs to have and support a dynamic retail hub.  Our Dive Retail Survey will be used to build a strong foundation for our industry to grow upon.

For more information on the 2026 Industry-Wide Dive Retail Survey contact Gene Muchanski at Dive Industry Foundation.  Phone 321-914-3778.  eMail: gene@diveindustry.org

Become a Member of our Global Diving Business Network: Annual Membership in the Dive Industry Association is $125 and includes placement in a number of Trade Directories and websites.  Our organization uses websites and directories in advertising and marketing campaigns to refer business to our members.  By joining our network, you are becoming part of a network that works on your behalf to bring buyers and sellers together for the benefit and growth of the Global Diving Community.  Download a Membership Application today.

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Editorial – March 2026

Posted on March 8, 2026 by Gene Muchanski

Time For Spring Cleaning
by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

March 20th is the first day of spring so an editorial that pontificates the virtues of spring cleaning may seem appropriate, but the diving industry deserves better than that.  Let’s take the practice of annual spring cleaning to the next level.  By doing a deep-dive on the topic of spring-cleaning, we can show you the rationality for conducting a thorough examination of your operating procedures and the multiple benefits that will result from it.

Spring Cleaning is more than an annual cleaning ritual.  It is the signaling of a new beginning – a fresh start.  Growing up in Connecticut, my family would make a weekend out of cleaning our house from top to bottom during the first weekend of Spring, after a long, hard, New England Winter.  We would work from room to room, moving all the furniture, vacuuming the carpets, scrubbing the floors, opening the windows, and airing out the house.  After we finished with the house (a three-story Cape Cod), we proceeded to groom the outside of the house and the detached garage.  We didn’t do this massive cleaning because the house was particularly dirty.  My Mother kept an immaculately clean house all year round, but we did it as an annual rite of passage.  Winter was over and we were entering into a new beginning now that spring was upon us.  With Spring cleaning out of the way, we were all psychologically prepared to enter the new season and conquer any and all of the challenges we could possibly face. 

My memories of spring-cleaning as a child have stayed with me my entire life.  As an educated adult, I can modify my spring-cleaning activities to signal the beginning of a new day, a new week, a new month, a new season, or a new year.  I use it in my personal life, in my business life, and in the diving industry as a Business Planner & Consultant.   It’s my way of starting anew, starting fresh, and starting unburdened.  Maybe I do have a touch of OCD or maybe I have just taken the advice of Marie Kondo, Tidying Up With Marie Kondo, very seriously, but I do take great  pleasure in staying lean and getting rid of as much baggage as I can before starting a new adventure.  It Sparks Joy!

Spring-Cleaning in the Diving Industry: Your business will run better if you keep it lean.  So will your career in the diving industry.  At the beginning of a new period (you choose the period), there are a few ways to make your business ready for the new period ahead of you.  First of all, your operating space needs to be clean and fresh.  This is especially challenging for manufacturing companies and retail stores, but it needs to be done anyway. The second area of concern is the business and marketing tools you use to run your business.  Take an inventory of your business machines and software programs you use to conduct your business.  Are they all functioning properly and efficiently?  Are your software programs all current?  Most companies have a logbook of their current business machines and software programs.  Each one is assigned a number and a specified location.  The third area we look at is our files.  Make sure all your computer files and paper files are in proper order and in the location they are supposed to be in.

Conduct an Audit by Department: The best way to ensure that your company has the right tools to carry out the company’s mission is to conduct a company-wide audit, by department.  Each Department Head should have a copy of the company’s Standard Operating Procedures Manual that addresses their department.  It should list all of the business tools, technologies, and supplies they need to complete their part of the company mission.  The beginning of the season is a good time to make sure that each department has what they need to conduct business.

Conduct a Trial Assessment: On an annual basis, you should conduct a trial assessment of how your business operates.  We will be covering this topic in greater detail all year long, but for now, let’s look at your business as a customer conversion machine.  If you are a dive retailer, think of the process you have set up that takes a first-time visitor to your store, from inquiring about scuba lessons to becoming a certified diver.  What steps do you take them through from telling them about your course, signing them up for lessons, counseling them on equipment purchases, teaching them how to dive, certifying them during their open water experience, and then following through with keeping them active in your local diving community.  That is called a customer conversion process, and it is strategically designed to turn a prospect into a repeat customer.  If you have customer conversion processes set up, now is the time to see that they are actually functioning in the matter they were designed to.

Creating an Exit Strategy: Every business should have an exit strategy.  Your career as a Dive Industry Professional should also have an exit strategy.  It doesn’t matter if you are planning on ever selling your business, passing it on to a family member, or closing it down.  Every business should operate under the assumption that one day it will be sold or change ownership.  To prepare Entrepreneurs for that day, we recommend creating a written exit strategy playbook.   Spring cleaning is the first step in conducting an exit strategy.  Your assessment will point out your business’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.  It will spell out how much your business is worth and what remains to be done to make it as operationally efficient as possible.  Make spring cleaning an annual ritual.  It will make running lean easier on a daily basis.

Become a Member of our Global Diving Business Network: Annual Membership in the Dive Industry Association is $125 and includes placement in a number of Trade Directories and websites.  Our organization uses websites and directories in advertising and marketing campaigns to refer business to our members.  By joining our network, you are becoming part of a network that works on your behalf to bring buyers and sellers together for the benefit and growth of the Global Diving Community.  Download a Membership Application today.

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Editorial – February 2026

Posted on February 21, 2026 by Gene Muchanski

So, What’s The Plan?
by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

Last month’s editorial was entitled Building a Better Industry.  To follow up on that topic, this month’s editorial was going to be Build a Better Business.  After a little discussion with a few colleagues in the industry, we decided to turn the editorial into a full article under our Dive Industry Network Series and write a new editorial.  Allow me to explain.

The purpose of our Trade Association is to Build a Better Industry.  An economically healthy industry that is growing and has a high degree of sustainability.  An industry that provides the best programs, products, and services for the global diving community.  An industry that is a good steward of the environment and its natural resources.  An industry that has the business savvy to operate ethically, in an organized, educated, and professional manner.  An industry that has an organized and fluid channel of distribution that professionally manages the flow of goods and services seamlessly from producer to consumer.  An industry that understands the transition of our core competencies from conception to consumption.  To build a better industry you must have good businesses that operate in it.  To have good businesses, an industry must have a Trade Association that is actively engaged in its research, education, planning, and management.  An Association that brings together the best and the brightest individuals within our industry to strategize, plan, and implement a pathway to success.   I believe we are that Trade Association.

Building a better industry and building a better business is a long-term, life-long commitment to excellence.  An editorial should be a current snapshot of what is trending in our industry as of today.  What’s new, what’s now, what’s next?  You want a better industry and a better business, So What’s Your Plan?

Planning is in the Diver’s DNA: The Learning phase of our life is a critical one.  I’m talking about the period in our life where we undergo initial learning for our career and future lifestyle.  In my ten years of initial learning, I studied diving (scuba, hard hat, mixed gases, diving instructor, diving supervisor), military operations (Submarines, Diving, Salvage, Mobile Operations, Supply), and University (Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Retailing).  In every instance, planning was stressed as a prerequisite to action. It is incomprehensible to me that divers in our industry who “plan their dive & dive their plan” don’t have a plan for the successful operation of their business or their industry.  In my opinion, anybody that has a business in the diving industry should Plan Their Work and Work Their Plan.

After 45 years of working in the planning and consulting business, I am starting to think that we have been looking at the art and science of planning in the wrong perspective.  Were we led to believe that planning was a passive activity and purely academic in nature?  Were so many people turned off to planning because they thought of themselves as people of action, and thought that planning was a waste of time?  Maybe.  I do have to give non-planners the benefit of the doubt because I’ve seen too many business consultants in the halls of academia that never had any real-world experience in business, and they treated business planning as an academic, pre-business exercise that entrepreneurs needed to undertake before they went into business for themselves.  As a life-long Dive Industry Business Planner, Business Consultant, and former Marketing Professor, I am convinced that business planning is essentially a major part of the entire business development model, but it is not an isolated exercise that only takes place prior to the opening of a business, doomed to end up unread, on somebody’s book shelf.  It’s time to redefine what business planning is and why it is necessary for the success of both start-up and ongoing businesses in the Global Diving Industry.

A New Planning Paradigm: There are many types of plans that people use in business.  In the diving business community, we tend to differentiate them as business, marketing, operational, strategic, and event planning.   I think it will serve the Global Diving Business Network best if we focus this year on planning as an integrated part of our campaigns and events.  Good planning is more than what you might have previously thought it was.  I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag right now and spoil our future article series on planning, but the act of planning is not at the beginning of a process.  It’s actually in the middle.  Planning is something you do after you decide what it is you want to do.  We call that planning with a purpose.

Getting Things Done: We are going to make planning work for us in the 21st century diving industry.  Let’s just call what we will do, “Making Things Better.”  We’ll start the process off with an assessment.  Let’s capture where we are in the present moment.  We do that by conducting research or conducting an audit.  Next, we analyze the data that is collected to determine our present position.  The next step is to create an image or description of where we would like to be.  What will we look like when the project is finished.  The challenge then becomes how to work on the difference that exists in where we are and where we want to be.  We have to create milestones or objectives that must be achieved in order to make the transition complete.  What actionable items do we have to undertake to achieve our objectives?  We will have to have measurable key results that have to be accomplished in order to achieve our objectives.  It sounds like a lot of work, but we have a plan for it.  So, can we count on you to help us with these 5 steps for making the industry better?  1) Assessment 2) Planning 3) Action 4) Measurement 5) Achievement.

Become a Member of our Global Diving Business Network: Annual Membership in the Dive Industry Association is $125 and includes placement in a number of Trade Directories and websites.  Our organization uses websites and directories in advertising and marketing campaigns to refer business to our members.  By joining our network, you are becoming part of a network that works on your behalf to bring buyers and sellers together for the benefit and growth of the Global Diving Community.  Download a Membership Application today.

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Build a Better Business

Posted on February 14, 2026 by Gene Muchanski

Build a Better Business
by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

Our Editorial last month was Building a Better Industry.  Within minutes after we published the editorial, my phone rang off the hook.  Most of the calls were short and to the point, but one call came from a well-respected Dive Industry Professional that lasted about two hours.  My friend agreed with our approach at Building a Better Industry but was quick to point out many of the current challenges facing the 21st Century diving industry.

As I explained to my colleague, as an Industry Planner I am focused on our industry’s bigger picture.  We created a trade association 25 years ago to define the organizational structure of the industry and identify the programs, products, and services that are created, distributed, and sold through the industry’s channels of distribution.  Our mission is to bring buyers and sellers together but in order to do that we need to study and document the best ways to facilitate the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer.  An industry is not sustainable if it does not have a sound organizational structure.  Much like a house, it has to be built on a good foundation.  And after it’s built, it has to be managed and refined as it grows.

As a Trade Association, our organization works with businesses in the diving industry that produce programs, products, and services for diving.  A big part of our responsibility to the producers is to identify, understand, and work with the Dive Industry Professionals who work in the industry, either on a full-time or part-time basis.  In order to help bring buyers and sellers together successfully, it is imperative that we also understand and identify the end users.  It is the end users who determine if an industry is going to survive or not.

A trade association can work with various components of the industry to study and recommend best practices for production, distribution, marketing, and economic development and growth but it’s up to the individual businesses in the market to produce the right products, at the right price, for the right customers.  To be able to do that, every business in the diving industry needs to focus on being the best business they can be.  To be considered a good industry, it is imperative that we have good businesses.  Good businesses become great businesses by continually focusing and improving on their core competencies.  Good niche markets become great markets by having industry sectors and stakeholder groups that properly integrate with each other to produce workable, profitable, and successful outcomes.  Successful outcomes don’t just happen by default.  They are planned for and executed by the businesses and stakeholder groups that have a vested interest in the success of the industry.

Make it a Priority: Building a better business starts with a decision to make it a company priority.  That applies to every business in the diving industry, regardless of whether you are a sole owner-operator, a mom & pop small business, or a multi-million-dollar corporation.  Someone has to do what the business was set up to do, and someone has to run the company that is the legal and business framework for what you do.

Allocate Resources:  Runing a business takes time, money, and manpower.  If you want to stay in business, doing what you do, then commit to allocating the necessary resources that make it possible to run a successful business.  The best strategy for allocating resources to manage your business is to make it scalable.  Allocating too much attention to running a small business could be as unproductive and costly as spending too little time managing a growing business.  Start off with a good business foundation and build your organization as it grows.  As your business grows, invest in new tools, technologies, and business practices to properly manage your growth.

Keep Adapting to Change: Building a better business is a never-ending challenge.  There is only one constant in the world of business and that is there will always be change.  Make change work for you.  I earned my degree in Marketing 45 years ago, but my business education continues to this day.  Believe me, the world of business has changed in 45 years.  It’s still changing and at an accelerated rate.  If you want to be successfully engaged in business, you have to make professional business development a constant activity in your career.  It has to be a life-long commitment and a top priority for you.

Focus On What You Do Best: Every business has their strengths and weaknesses.  It is best to build on your strengths and work with your weaknesses.  One of your strengths should be your core competencies.  If it isn’t, maybe you’re in the wrong line of work.  But if it is, then maybe that is what you should focus on. If running a business is a weakness for you, you have two viable options.  You can either learn more about business issues or you can delegate the business responsibilities to someone who understands business better than you do.  Ignoring your business problems or continuing to do things the wrong way are not intelligent options.

Learning something new is not as difficult as you think.  I do it all the time.  Where Dive Industry Professionals get bogged down is in their desire to learn something new.  They learned how to be a better diver and a better instructor because they love diving and they enjoy teaching diving.  But when it comes to running a business, some dive professionals don’t like it, may think it’s boring, or they would rather do something else with their time, money, and manpower.  And that’s OK.  Understanding how you feel about doing certain things is enlightening.  It’s always your choice to make.

Become Engaged in the Industry: You should always be building a better business but don’t be a silo entity.  Open yourself up to the concept of shared knowledge, experience, and marketing promotion.  If it is your responsibility to manage the business issues in your company, then becoming actively engaged in the global diving industry will pay immense dividends for you and your company.  There are many advantages to networking with people who are in the same boat as you are.  There is strength in numbers and there is plenty of wisdom and experience to be shared amongst colleagues.  For the diving industry to grow in the new millennium and achieve some type of reasonable sustainability for a brighter future, we need to learn how to play better with others.  The recreational diving industry is a small sandbox of fragmented businesses.  If all businesses in the diving industry would learn to play well with the other dive businesses and stakeholder groups, I am confident that our industry would grow by leaps and bounds.

Become a Member of our Global Diving Business Network: Annual Membership in the Dive Industry Association is $125 and includes placement in a number of Trade Directories and websites.  Our organization uses websites and directories in advertising and marketing campaigns to refer business to our members.  By joining our network, you are becoming part of a network that works on your behalf to bring buyers and sellers together for the benefit and growth of the Global Diving Community.  Download a Membership Application today.

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Editorial – January 2026

Posted on February 1, 2026 by Gene Muchanski

Building a Better Industry
by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

In his book, How To Win Friends & Influence People, Dale Carnegie taught us to never criticize, condemn, or complain.   I’ve lived by those words most of my adult life.   Had I studied Dale Carnegie much earlier as a child, I believe my life would have been even more meaningful and productive than it is today.  That’s not a complaint.  It’s a realization of the power of productive living that is only possible when you focus on a path forward for your life, your career, and your personal development.  It’s about having the vision and the discipline to work toward achieving goals and objectives that enable you to create the life and the world in which you want to live.   Studying Dale Carnegie is the best thing I’ve ever academically pursued and that decision has changed my life for the better.

Twenty-five years ago, the Dive Industry Association was founded in order to create a Trade Association that would Build a Better Industry, One Member at a Time.  Our Mission was designed to bring buyers and sellers together by creating a Global Diving Business Network (the Sellers) and identifying consumers of diving products and services in the Global Diving Community.  The amount of time, money, and manpower that it took to crystalize our mission has been staggering, but we are finally at that tipping point where our growth and effectiveness is recognizable to the entire diving industry.

You can only build a better tomorrow for buyers and sellers in an industry by having a vision for the future, and constructively strategizing, planning, implementing, and building a pathway to growth and success.  You don’t build a better industry by tearing down the existing foundations of our industry and rebuilding your own eutopia.  You move forward with plans that contain actionable items, that achieve short and long-range objectives, that can be measured by key results and analyzed for their successful completion.  It’s working with your peers to implement and integrate current successful paradigms in the global diving industry.  It’s about being the best person for the team instead of trying to be the best or only person on the team.

There are some individuals and organizations in our industry that always seem to be against someone, some business, some organization, or some policy.  We’ve witnessed some nasty, destructive and negative campaigns that have done more harm than good to the industry, and we’ve seen some harsh lawsuits that have been filed and won against the campaigners.  My question is not about the rationality of the negative campaigns but as to their effectiveness.  When someone asks me to be against something, I always want to inquire about the bigger picture.  If we are against something, then what is it that we want to be for?  In my opinion, wouldn’t it be better to constructively work on the thing that we are trying to create rather than just be against something?

I recently took a healthy lifestyle management course through the Veterans Administration.  For us Veterans, it’s called MOVE! Weight Management Program for Veterans.  I highly recommend it to all veterans.  Not just for weight loss, but for developing a healthy lifestyle that can in fact, change your life.  In the 16-week program I lost 25 pounds, but I didn’t achieve it by not doing something.  I didn’t just not eat, I ate the right food, in the correct portions, and combined diet with exercise.  I analyzed my calories in and calories out.  I graphed my blood chemistry and identified which blood counts were acceptable and which ones were not.  I had to set smart goals every week and think of actionable items that would achieve my weekly objectives.  I had to measure my key results to see if they were doing the job that I was planning for.  The program was a lot of work, but it rekindled my discipline and increased my motivation as I started to experience weekly successes.

The VA MOVE program was life-changing for me.  The work sparked my desire to take control of my health, and that was only the beginning.  During the course I did some more research on goals, objectives, actionable items, OKR’s, and statistics about habits.  I applied what I learned to my business, my career, and my lifestyle.  I read three more exceptional books; Good To Great, Measure What Matters, and Atomic Habits that have made a significant difference for me in my personal life and in my business life.

Never one to underestimate the power of attitude, motivation, discipline, and a purpose driven life, I have learned to strategically plan smart goals, create actionable items that achieve objectives and I am mastering the art of measuring key results to verify that I am on track to achieving my objectives.  Is it working?  Well, this past DEMA Show in November was the most productive DEMA Show I have had in 43 years.  We exhibited at Surf Expo in January and it too, was the best Surf Expo I have ever exhibited at in their 50-year history.  Last month we signed up four of the largest companies in the diving industry.  In January 2026 we had a 194% increase in sales over January 2025.  So, you tell me!  Is it the economy, the industry, events, or my attitude?  I think it may be a combination of all four.  You may want to read our article, DIA – A 25-year-old Startup.

Become a Member of our Global Diving Business Network: Annual Membership in the Dive Industry Association is $125 and includes placement in a number of Trade Directories and websites.  Our organization uses websites and directories in advertising and marketing campaigns to refer business to our members.  By joining our network, you are becoming part of a network that works on your behalf to bring buyers and sellers together for the benefit and growth of the Global Diving Community.  Download a Membership Application today.

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DIA – The 25-Year-Old Start-up

Posted on January 15, 2026 by Gene Muchanski

Dive Industry Association, Inc.
A 25-Year-Old Start-up
 by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

This April, the Dive Industry Association will celebrate its 25th Anniversary.  WOW.  Where has the time gone?  It has been my honor and privilege to study and work with some of the greatest companies in the global diving industry.  As a Dive Industry Professional, my greatest joy has been to spend my time researching our industry and consulting with some of the best people and companies in the global diving community.

Being an Industry Planner in the Diving Industry is not a career path for the faint of heart.  It takes a person who has a passion for diving, business, and people.  It’s our love for diving that compels us to learn as much about the activity as possible and put that education to use as often as we can. Every dive is a new experience, and any seasoned diver knows that the more experience we get, the better at diving we become.

Business is the same way. You have to have a passion for it.  A formal business education in a business discipline like Marketing will pay dividends you can’t possibly comprehend fully at the beginning of your diving career.  And that’s just the beginning.  Getting your business degree qualifies you as an apprentice or an intern.  It’s only through a lifetime of learning where you will master the techniques that will make you worthy of the degree you hold.  Continual professional development in business is critical for Dive Industry Professionals working in the Global Diving Business Network.  It’s imperative that we stay current with business tools and technologies that make our businesses competitive and sustainable.  In the business world, we need to keep up with the constant changes in products, markets, communications, and consumer behavior.

To be successful in the diving industry, especially as an Industry Planner, you have to have a passion for, and genuinely like people.  Serving the needs of the divers in the global diving community is why we are doing what we do.  Training agencies create diving courses that make diving as safe and enjoyable as possible.  Their continuing educational programs and professional development conferences build on their integrity and safety.  Diving equipment companies design and produce the safest equipment imaginable for underwater exploration and recreation.  Retail Dive Centers work relentlessly to teach people how to dive, outfit them with the correct diving equipment, take them diving, and keep them active in the global diving community.  The industry’s main focus is for the safety and recreational enjoyment of divers worldwide.

Having a passion for diving, business, and people goes deeper than the present moment.  Industry Planners need to be students of the industry.  Knowing what has worked for us in the past 80 years and what has not is important.  Having a vision for the future of the diving industry is critical in the global planning process.  Knowing where the industry has been, where it is now, and where it is we all would like to go is the quest we are undertaking.  The challenges, as we have found out in the past 25 years is that it takes time, money, and manpower to create and implement a workable plan of action that is capable of achieving our goals and objectives.  I believe we are at that tipping point right now.

Creating a plan for the future success of an industry is similar to creating a plan that makes a good company a great company. To me, it’s like putting together a puzzle.  You have to have an image of what the outcome looks like, before you begin.  You have to understand, or in many cases create the pieces of the puzzle that will end up in the final version.  Then you have to align the pieces in proper order so that each piece integrates with the other pieces in the finished product.  At some point in the process, planners will begin to see the progress well enough to believe that the final outcome is going to be achieved.  That’s the point I believe the Global Diving Industry is at right now.

Twenty-five years ago, the Dive Industry Association was created to “Build a Better Industry.”   The diving industry at the time was fragmented.  Industry sales were flat.  Annual numbers of initial certifications were declining.  The number of retail outlets that specialized in diving was declining rapidly.  Suppliers and vendors were operating their businesses and following their own agendas as if nothing was changing in the global economy.  While the diving industry was declining, or remaining “flat” at best, two major socio-economic changes were taking place.  Technology was advancing at an alarming pace and consumer behavior was going through a historical make-over.

People in the diving industry are not known for being early adapters.  It would be more correct to classify industry professionals as being late adapters, or slow to adapt.   We polled the businesses in the diving industry at the time and found out that a good number of diving businesses were in favor of a new Trade Association that would work with them to build a better industry.  In April 2001 we incorporated the Dive Industry Association and created the byline, Building a Better Industry, One Member at a Time.

In 2002, our Association conducted an industry-wide survey of the Retail Dive Stores in the U.S.   We asked about their organizational structure, their profit centers in equipment, training, and travel, and their marketing efforts.  We also inquired about their 5 biggest needs in the diving industry.  The data we received helped us to formulate a strategic plan to work with the retail stakeholder group and create a plan of action to address their needs.   We followed up on the retail survey by polling the diving equipment sales reps.  The results of this survey helped us to understand important issues in the industry’s supply chain.  At that point we were able to work on the components of our vision that needed to be initiated.  It was time to align the pieces of the puzzle and lay out a strategic plan that the industry could participate in and benefit from.

Working in a recreational based industry has its own unique challenges and opportunities.  Understanding the industry takes time and casual observers rarely pay attention to your work because to them, it doesn’t look like you are making any progress in solving their problems.  The same thing goes for research and strategic planning.  These are time consuming endeavors, and they are non-revenue generating by nature.  Building a vision to better your business or your industry is part science and part art.  Over the years we have been able to identify and work with the global diving community to determine their needs and create a global diving business network that meets their needs.

When our association was founded, we understandably began to focus on the trade aspects of the diving industry.  As a Trade Association we communicated with diving equipment manufacturers, sales reps, retail dive stores, training agencies, and diving businesses in the travel industry.  Ninety-eight percent (98%) of our membership came from these groups.  We developed our marketing campaigns to include direct mail, electronic mail, print media, and face-to-face marketing at shows & events to promote our members and their companies.  Our focus was on the sale of diving equipment and service, training, travel, and lifestyle products that were the main components of the supply chain.  We built an incredible database of the diving industry trade and exhibited at more trade and consumer shows than any other similar organizations in our industry.  Our membership saw the value in the services we provided, and we were delighted to have such a high annual renewal rate and loyal members.

As our marketing reach and frequency increased, so did our industry knowledge and effectiveness.  We realized that only having a good command of the supply chain from producer to wholesale buyer (dive stores) limited our market penetration and participation.  We increased our focus to include Dive Industry Professionals in our calculus.  Dive Industry Professionals include those of us who work part time or full time in the industry.  While Dive Industry Professionals don’t normally join our association as individual members, they are the people who work in the businesses we promote.  Our immediate focus changed from targeting businesses to developing business relationships with the people who own or work in businesses that specialize in diving and adventure travel.

The Dive Industry Association grew at a respectable pace for a number of years, growing steadily until the covid pandemic hit.  The diving industry came to an almost all-stop shortly after the Our World Underwater Show in 2019.  The next few years were devastating for the entire diving industry and the economic recovery that followed was slow and painful.  Many of the dive shows, both trade and consumer, cancelled their events.  Sales Reps were not calling on their accounts, and I don’t know how many scuba instructors were still teaching diving during the pandemic lock-down.  Our Association used that time wisely to bring on all of the Microsoft and Adobe software programs and training courses.  We switched our marketing from in person and print to digital formats.  We were able to increase our reach and frequency of our weekly press release service – Weekly News.   We were able to turn our association newsletter into a trade magazine, The Dive Industry Professional, and be able to create, publish, and distribute it to the entire global diving community free of charge. The ability to create and publish our Trade Directory & Buyers Guide in-house saved us thousands of dollars and allowed us to offer it to the global diving community at no cost.  Now, every buyer of diving equipment, training, travel, and lifestyle products can have their own up-to-date Buyers Guide that features our member suppliers.

As the pandemic began to wind down, the diving industry began a slow and painful recovery.  I still don’t believe that the industry has fully recovered but what I am sure of is that it has changed forever.  The industry lost a number of diving businesses, including some consumer dive shows.  The retail industry has changed dramatically, and consumer behavior has undergone a permanent change in how they shop and purchase products.  The Dive Industry Association has taken up that challenge and added certified divers to our marketing campaign focus.    After all, the reason we are in the trade business is because our trade partners hire Dive Industry Professionals, and sell their programs, products, and services to the entire global diving community.

In the last two years, we have continued our strategic growth agenda by adopting a five-point growth strategy that I have written about in the last few issues of The Dive Industry Professional.   We will continue to implement this format to achieve our goals and objectives:  1) Awareness  2) Education  3) Planning  4) Execution  5) Measure & Analyze.  As Industry Planners, we are looking at Industry Challenges that need to be addressed.  We will choose Actionable Items that can achieve our Desired Outcomes.  We will create Key Results to measure our progress at achieving our Objectives.

The good news is that our new strategy is working.  Quite well in fact.  This past DEMA Show was the best DEMA Show in my 43 years of exhibiting.  Last week we exhibited at Surf Expo’s 50th year anniversary Trade Show.  It too was the best Surf Expo I have exhibited at.  Is it the economy, the industry, the events, or our strategy?  I don’t know.  It may be a combination of all four.  As a result, we’ve added more new members and recaptured more former members than ever before.  Our annual renewal rate remains high, and we recently acquired some of the biggest names in the diving industry.  Our message of working with our business partners and Dive Industry Professionals to reach the six million certified divers in the world who buy diving programs, products, and services is resonating well with the global diving community.

After twenty-five years of studying, researching, planning, achieving, succeeding, growing, and building a better industry, I believe we are at the tipping point of becoming an overnight success.

The purpose of our Association is still to Build a Better Industry.  Our Mission is still to bring buyers and sellers together.  Our strategy is to be more inclusive in our marketing approach and to be as flexible as necessary to interpret the buying signals we get from diving consumers, so that we can support our members more effectively. Our philosophy is that if an industry has 8,000 businesses in it, its Trade Association should have 8,000 members.  Not 100.  Not 1,000.  All 8,000.  Regardless of who your customers are.  Regardless of which trade shows you exhibit at.  Regardless of how you conduct your marketing campaigns.  The best time to apply for membership is now.

Become a Member of our Global Diving Business Network: Annual Membership in the Dive Industry Association is $125 and includes placement in a number of Trade Directories and websites.  Our organization uses websites and directories in advertising and marketing campaigns to refer business to our members.  By joining our network, you are becoming part of a network that works on your behalf to bring buyers and sellers together for the benefit and growth of the Global Diving Community.  Download a Membership Application today.

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