|
|
|
|
February 2021 ProgramCORAL RESTORATION FOUNDATIONBy Jeremy GoodsnyderJeremy Goodsnyder is a Coral Restoration and Reef Conservation Lead Intern at the Coral Restoration Foundation (CRF). He has been working for the CRF since September, 2020 and loves every second of the time has spent above and below the surface during his time at CRF. Jeremy graduated from Brandeis University in May, 2020 with honors, majoring in Environmental Studies as well as Anthropology. He has been scuba diving since he was 12 years old and has been fortunate enough to dive all over the world from the Florida Keys, to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Red Sea, the Caribbean, and even balmy Lake Michigan! When it came to working for CRF, Jeremy knew he had to give back to the coral reefs, the one thing that has given him so much joy in his life, he decided to join CRF to fulfill that dream so that future generations can enjoy what he has been fortunate enough to see in life so far was an obvious choice. Jeremy has dabbled here and there in regards to dive experience from recreational, to commercial diving, and even underwater archaeology as well. With experience working at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, as well as diving in the states as well as abroad, his path naturally led to his dream position here with the Coral Restoration Foundation. He is extremely excited to share his knowledge, experiences, and time with the Under Sea Adventurers Dive Club, this February 4th! |
Welcome to February everybody. During our social conversations before the last Membership meeting it was promising to hear how many of our members have received vaccines and them sharing tips for others to get theirs, hopefully we will be able to semi return to a more social lifestyle. During our January Board Meeting, we confirmed the following appointed positions:
ARTICLE II: APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP Section 1: Applications for membership must be submitted along with annual dues, a signed Membership Agreement, and proof of certification from a globally recognized S.C.U.B.A. diving certification training agency. Section 2: All dues and/or fees shall be established by the Board of Directors. Section 3: Applications for membership shall be reviewed and approved by a committee designated by the Board of Directors.
If you would like to view free Zoom tutorials, you can find them here. Or you can take a free Zoom class from Geeks On Tour here. Don't forget to keep checking our Facebook page for the interesting articles Russ is posting. https://www.facebook.com/usadiveclub Happy diving, 
Overseas Dive Trips
Local Diving
Mini-Trips
Social events
| Hospitality HutClare Florio AnthonSalutations From The Hospitality Hut, UNDER SEA ADVENTURERS DIVE CLUB IS CELEBRATING IT’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY THIS YEAR!!! YES, my fellow club members, it's true. 2021 is the GOLDEN Anniversary year of our club. Ten years ago, Julie and Russ Manhold and yours truly planned the 40th Anniversary Party at Ellies' 50's Diner in the Flamingo Ballroom. The gala was a huge success with nearly 100 people in attendance. The dance floor was rockin' and rollin' all night. Take a peek at the fun we had! Here is the link to the 40th Anniversary https://goo.gl/photos/uyU2n1uv1kNrcHgE8 Now it's February 2021, one year since the virus came into our lives. We are continuing our ZOOM meetings and have had wonderful presentations. Our VP of Programs is planning many more informative speakers and I encourage all to participate. Take a brief ZOOM tutorial and you will see how user friendly ZOOM is. As we can't meet in person, I have a feeling many of you may have happy news you would like to share with fellow members. If that is the case, please email me at hospitality@usadiveclub.org and I will be happy to post your news here, in the Hospitality Blog. I encourage you to visit our website www.usadiveclub.org. Please click on the calendar and keep up to date on all the diving and non-diving scheduled activities. You may also take a look at the photo gallery and take a peek at past events. I wish you all Happy Diving. Clare Anthon
MembershipHello fellow divers. I hope everyone is enjoying this wonderful weather we're having, albeit a bit chilly at times. I have been doing a little bit of local diving to support the charters but it is cool now, 72-74 degree water temperatures. It takes more than one layer of wetsuit this time of year. Visibility has been very good due to no rain and runoff. I see our flyers in Force-E Pompano and hope it generates interest for more members. I have had an inquiry or two during this non-gathering time. Happy Bubbling, Membership Coordinator Come join the fun.
USA Club Announcements Alert Please check your spam folder for club emails that coming from our Google Groups email system. Several members have commented that they are not receiving certain announcements that have been sent out. Spam filters are triggered by emails that are sent to numerous email addresses with the same content. This may be where your club communications are. |
The board has approved Club Rules update as proposed by the Membership Committee
LOBSTER POT
(Suspended until live meetings are allowed to resume)
USA's Lobster Pot drawings Include CASH prizes, and a variety of PRIZES donated by South Florida Dive Shops,
other Sponsors or Club Members.
Funds from ticket donations help to support our many club activities. Congratulations to all our Lobster Pot participants. Be sure to visit our Local dive shops who support us and say 'Thanks'.
|
|
Educational Blog5-Year Trends in the Dive IndustryThis article represents the views of the author. The article has not been fact checked by myself, the Board of Directors or any member of the USA Dive Club. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. DEMA recently published the results of its 2020 ‘Dive Behavioral Research Project’ from a survey conducted in 2019. A previous dive behavioral research was conducted in 2014. We have reviewed the results of both the 2019 and the 2014 studies to identify key pieces of information to help you manage your dive business. We are especially interested in changes between these 2 reports to identify trends in the scuba diving industry. ABOUT DEMA’S DIVE BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH PROJECTThe goal of the project to analyze and understand the demographics and psychographics of scuba divers as it pertains to dive travel, scuba diving equipment purchases, and scuba courses. DEMA is the Diving Equipment & Marketing Association commonly referred to as our dive industry trade association. The data collection for the DEMA Dive Behavioral Research Project was done through an online survey. In 2014, 24000 divers responded to the survey with more than 2000 from Canada, about 13000 from the USA, and the remainder from countries across the planet. In 2019, only 9700 scuba divers responded to the survey with about 1000 from Canada, almost 5000 from the USA, and the rest from countries around the globe. Available Data Sets and Reports from The Dive Behavioral Research ProjectSo far, DEMA released 2 sets of data from the 2019 survey: · 2020 results from all responding countries · 2020 results from USA participants A Canadian report is forthcoming. Shortcomings of DEMA’s Reports on Scuba Diver Demographics and PsychographicsThere is a serious issue with the 2019 survey besides the fact that the data set was significantly smaller (about 9000 respondents vs. 14000 in 2014). In the 2019 survey, more than 40% of the respondents were dive professionals: divemasters, assistant instructors, and scuba diving instructors. If we are interested in understanding the behavior of ‘scuba divers’, the 2019 data set is highly unreliable as almost half of the respondents were scuba diving professionals. We know dive professionals have a behavior that can be significantly different than that of the average Joe Diver. For instance, typically, scuba instructors dive more frequently and purchase more dive gear. Furthermore, when comparing the two sets of data (2014 vs 2019), we are facing a double problem in regards to dive professionals. In the 2014 study, less than 10% of the respondents were scuba diving professionals (divemaster and up) while there were more than 40% in the 2019 survey Therefore, we are facing the following 2 serious issues with this DEMA study on scuba diver demographics and psychographics: · We can’t use the results to understand the behavior of a ‘scuba diver’ as both reports include dive professionals that are much more committed to scuba diving than the average scuba diver — which is especially true in the 2019 set of data with more than 40% of the respondents being dive professionals. · We can’t fully rely on trends identified in changes from 2014 to 2019 since we would be comparing oranges to electric cars. It is fair to assume that dive professionals are more ‘core’ divers than ‘casual’. In fact, we see that the average number of dives completed by 2019 respondents is higher than it was in the 2014 study. Learn more about core and casual divers on Scubanomics. We’ve contacted DEMA to request a version of both reports (2014 and 2019) excluding all dive professionals, so we can better understand the behavior of scuba divers in regards to dive travel, scuba gear, and dive certification courses. Tom Ingram, head of DEMA, assured us that they “have plans for additional segmentation of the consumer data, including based on certification levels”. We hope DEMA will quickly produce 2014 and 2019 reports excluding dive professionals as this would be highly valuable to its members trying to understand the behavior of scuba divers. In the meantime, let’s see what information we can extract from the currently available reports mixing scuba divers and dive professionals. KEY SCUBA DIVER DEMOGRAPHICS AND PSYCHOGRAPHICS 2014 VS 2019Two interesting trends identified in our review of these 2 studies relate to eLearning and rebreathers. Scuba Diving Certification Courses at Home, in a Resort, and via eLearningAn assumption often discussed in the dive industry is that online learning is hurting local dive centers because it becomes easier to bypass the local dive center by completing the ‘theory’ part of the course and then flying to an exotic dive destination to complete the ‘pool’ and ‘open water’ parts of the scuba diving certification course. This appears to be partially true but not as major as we usually assume it to be. · The number of scuba divers who have completed the ‘theory’ part of the course online with no interaction with a local dive shop before flying to a dive resort to complete the ‘pool’ and ‘open water’ parts of the course has increased by less than 1%: from 6% to 6.89% Meanwhile, we observe more significant changes in the following modes of completing the entry-level open water diver certification: · The number of scuba divers who have completed all parts of the scuba course while in a vacation setting has declined from 23.9% to 18.7%. · The number of scuba divers who have completed the ‘theory’ and ‘pool’ parts of the course before going on a trip has increased from 14.6% to 17.6%. Therefore, it appears there is no reason to fear that eLearning is encouraging scuba divers to bypass the local dive shop. On the contrary, eLearning seems to have increased the number of people completing the ‘pool’ part of the course at home before going on a trip. It may be more accurate to assume that the online high visibility of eLearning is actually encouraging people to find a local dive shop to complete their pool sessions locally. It’s reducing the number of people going straight to a dive resort to complete the entirety of the entry-level open water certification course. Increased Interest for Rebreather, Sidemount, and FreedivingThere is a huge shift between 2014 and 2019 on the next courses respondents were most interested in taking. In 2014, the courses in which respondents were most interested in taking next were rescue diver, wreck diver, divemaster, and underwater photographer. This significantly changed in the 2019 survey. Not only the list of courses has changed but the level of interest has skyrocketed. We must urge caution with these numbers. As mentioned earlier, the 2019 sample included more than 40% of dive professionals who are much more committed to scuba diving than the average Joe Diver. Typically, scuba diving instructors have been a good target market for tech diving as they are looking for more challenges after reaching the pinnacle of recreational diving. Therefore, it is unlikely that there is an 84% interest in rebreathers in the general population of scuba divers. However, these numbers do indicate a significant increase in interest toward tech diving (rebreather, side-mount, other mixed gas) and freediving. Freediving has seen steady growth over the last few years. Dive gear manufacturers carrying freediving equipment have reported growth in their freediving line of products even when scuba gear sales were down. Both Mares and Aqualung have made significant investments in developing their freediving line of products. It appears freediving is appealing to the newer generations. It is challenging without requiring you to carry all the cumbersome equipment required for scuba diving. It also makes for great Instagram look-how-cool-I-am pictures! Role of The Scuba Diving InstructorThe most significant information source for scuba divers to decide what they want to do next remains the dive instructor and divemaster. Instructor/Divemaster gets a score of 4 on 5 while the local dive shop gets a 2.9. As we’ve stated before, there is a continued need for local scuba diving activities but the focus should be on the action of scuba diving, not on trying to sell dive gear in an understock retail store. We believe that in the years to come, the role of local dive instructors will become more significant while local dive shops redefine their mission and business model. Related article: A New Paradigm for the Scuba Diving Industry: It’s about diving! WHAT’S NEXT?Once DEMA releases the 2014 and 2019 survey results for ‘scuba divers’, excluding dive professionals, we will be able to get more valuable information out of these reports. Subscribe to Scubanomics to be informed when this data becomes available. Don’t be left out: Subscribe to be the first to know about dive industry news and market data. Continue reading: Scubanomics Table of Content. Connect, to be our dive business buddy: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook Sign up for Scubanomics: Scuba Diving Industry 2021 |
Place an ad to buy or sell gear, or promote a dive related event that will be of general interest to club membership. Email your ad to newsletter@usadiveclub.com |
© Copyright Under Sea Adventurers Dive Club 2021 |