Dive Assignment

Question
Dear Mike,

This might not be your average question, but I have been researching for the longest time and I really need an expert's opinion.

I'm Ilse van Tilborg, a Dutch student, studying international business and management. I'm in my final year so I have to prepare a graduation assignment. Since I really LOVE diving, I figured this would make a great topic for my paper!

So I designed my research question to be "What factors lead to an improved situation for a small dive shop to make it through the low season"

Now my question to you is: have you experienced seasonality? And how have you dealt with it? What have done to survive with little income?

I hope you have time to answer them!

Thanks in advance!

Ilse van Tilborg

Answer
Hi Ilse,

Many dive shops experience seasonal trends and it's something that we must take into consideration when setting up a business plan.  I think that in areas where diving is less convenient (divers have to work harder to get to good diving areas), seasonality is probably the most prevalent.  In my area, we have lots of water but visibility is generally poor so we must travel great distances to find clear water.  This makes diving less convenient than if we had good visibility in our local waters.  When winter approaches, cold water is added to the travel inconvenience and many local divers just stop diving for about 4 months.  As a result, divers will put their diving gear aside in favor of other sporting equipment during our winter months.

This trend suggests a solution for those lean times.  Many shops will combine diving equipment with skiing equipment so both summer and winter are represented.  Others will diversify and offer their indoor pool for parties and swimming lessons.  Still others have used their dive boats for ecological cruises through local nature preserves.

Personally, I've set my business up to keep overhead at an absolute minimun so I can make enough during the busy summer season to carry me through lean winter months.  To do this, I don't carry much debt into the winter and I don't make large inventory purchases during the winter.  This technique, coupled with the income from decreased winter sales has allowed me to survive the winter without significant problems.  I'm located on the Gulf of Mexico so I was also impacted by the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf earlier this year.  I was able to survive the loss of business using the same techniques while many other dive shops had to close.

Each shop owner has to evaluate their own conditions and decide what will work best for them.  In general, my technique is to minimize expenses and overhead and save as much as I can for leaner times.  For the past 12 years, it's worked well.

Of course, purchasing cold water exposure protection would permit divers to practice their sport year round but I've found in my area that divers don't want to do that and just prefer to dry out for a few months.  It's just a regional variation and I've found it easier to accept it rather than to fight it.

Ilse, I hope this helps you with your project and I wish you success with your studies!!

Sincerely,
Mike Giles
mikescuba.com