Teaching business skills to dive operators

What hinders the growth of the recreational dive industry is the lack of business training and development for dive centre and resort owners. Notwithstanding, dive centre and resort managers fall within the scope of dive management professionalism. The certification agencies package and sell dive courses to entry level divers, continuing education for recreational divers and professional level courses yet they fail to adequately train operators in the virtues of dive centre management.

Dive certification agencies, under increasing competitive pressures lack the will to drive change through an industry sadly in need of leadership and direction. The focus of professional level courses is dive training, almost oblivious to the stark realities of the industry that they operate in. No dive certification agency offers a dive centre and resort management course aligned to business principles incorporating principles of leadership, pricing, marketing, operations, accounting and bookkeeping, finance and teamwork.

Whilst a full micro-economics course is not required, presenting the principles of supply and demand to business owners allows business owners and managers to analyse their business and local competition. Touching on basic principles of macro-economics allows managers to analyse the industry seeking expansion opportunities. Teaching the principles of strategy allows managers the ability to internally analyse their business to enhance their value chain allowing value adding leading to a sustainable competitive advantage.

No longer would the dive centre and resort manager immediately engage in a costly price war, they would have the knowledge and skills to develop a value added product or service differential and market their product to targeted consumers based on their strengths and not to the old fallback position of lower prices unless a focused cost leadership position is identified by careful value chain analysis and exploited by a prudent marketing strategy.