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 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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Dive Industry Association, Inc. 