The successful modern-day dive centres in our area have evolved from scuba shacks lining the pier and the beaches to established Koh Tao dive centres. They’re no longer just a lonely instructor with a golden tan hanging out in a hammock waiting for someone to ask them to go diving. Running a scuba diving centre has evolved into a modern-day business venture, even though you don’t really need to wear shoes to work.
You might be surprised but the amount of work it takes to effectively run a dive centre. We make it look fun and easy, but there is way more involved than just heading out to a dive site and point out cool fish and corals. These days there is so much more to consider, and only the shops that have adapted have been able to stay open and become established Koh Tao dive centres.
First, there’s the logistical side of running a dive centre. You need to maintain the boats so that you can actually get divers to the dive sites. You need to maintain the compressors so that customers have tanks of clean air when they need them. Our rental equipment doesn’t clean and service itself so you need to make sure you keep up with those crucial safety tasks and can employ staff that can work as service technicians. There are a lot of moving parts to an established dive centre, and it can be expensive and time-consuming to run properly.
These days you can’t just lead scuba diver around dive sites and expect to succeed as an established Koh Tao dive centre. You need to be able to teach in addition to leading customers. A dive centre really looking to succeed should offer all courses from the very beginner courses all the way through to the professional levels of divemaster and instructor training.
But don’t think you can stop there. There are more dive shops out there than ever before so in order to stand out to customers, you need to be able to set yourself apart from the competition. The successful established Koh Tao dive centres (like Big Blue Diving!) offer more than just recreational scuba diving – they can offer freediving, technical diving, underwater photography and videography courses, eco and conservation courses, snorkelling, kayaking, and other watersports too.
You can’t just bring in new customers and then forget about them. A successful dive centre will promote a sense of family and community between its members and make sure that people not only dive with the centre but hang out at the centre afterwards. So make sure your dive centre has a bar and/or restaurant on-site so that hungry and thirsty divers don’t have to walk far for their after-diving meals and laughs. Maybe put a massage centre next door so that they have easy access to some relaxation on their days off. The more activities you can promote on your dive resort, the more sense of community you’ll be able to foster in your customers. And that will keep them coming back year after year!
Everybody wants a memory of their vacation adventures – whether it’s a new rashie, dive mask, t-shirt, or video of your underwater experiences. A dive centre that’s really going to be successful with its customers will be able to check this box too. By opening your own retail shop within your dive shop, you can make sure you only stock the best and can offer products to your customers at discounted rates and part of training packages.
Really, to become a successfully established Koh Tao dive centre, you have to be able to offer it all to your customers. How do we know? Because we HAVE been offering it all to our customers for many many years. We were one of the first dive shops to open on Koh Tao back in the early 1990s, and we’ve been steadily growing to accommodate our customers ever since. Now, we offer recreational diving, technical diving, freediving, conservation and ecology courses and internships, professional training, underwater photography and videography courses and services, and a full line of equipment and retail clothing options. We also have an on-site resort, a large training pool, a massage centre, and a beachfront restaurant and bar.
We know what a successfully established dive centre looks like – because we’ve been setting the standard for almost 30 years.
