The Economics of Group Scuba, 

Posted to rec.scuba.locations and sci.econ

There are several aspects to travel/dive trips.

DIVE SHOPS

A dive shop operator has a relativel high capital expense in boats,
tanks and gear. So they are usually willing to give either a discount
or free diving to people who bring them business that they would
otherwise miss. One "extra" diver on a trip does not cost them
anything extra. This is the case unless their boat is typically 
already loaded to capacity at that time of year.

And the particular situation is probably also very "individual", so
my experience may not generalize to other people.

During my first two "group scuba trips" all the diving was "free"
for everyone.  To review:

>But my first diving experiences were quite different, starting with
>the Virgin Island Ecological Research Station at the site of the 
>Navy Tektite project. My later trips, while teaching Oceanography
>at a small college, were to the west coast of St. Croix with groups
>of students.

VIERS provided tanks, an air compressor, and a small motor skiff, all
included with "room and food" for a cost of $10 per day per student.
As the faculity member in charge, even that cost was waived for me.
We filled the tanks and did all the diving we wanted.  Some students
were gathering information for a report on the growth of corals on
some freshly placed rocks, forming an artificial reef.  Other just
dove for pleasure.

When I could no longer go to VIERS because Woods Hole (on Cape Cod, MA)
took over the entire space for their students, I was advised by the 
director of VIERS to try Northside Valley on St. Croix.

Possibly because Bill Walker, one of the founders of VI DIVERS, was
then dating one of Nita Brown's many beautiful daughters, Bill invited
me to bring the students over to his place for a dive on my first
day in St Criox. I think he gave us all a discount, but he offered 
free diving to me every time I brought groups to VI DIVERS.

While most of our diving was from the shore, I did take students who
wanted boat dives over to C'sted to dive with VI DIVERS many times
during the next several trips.

In the mean time, The little dive shop call "Above and Below" in 
F'sted changed owners, got two boats, and became CRUZAN DIVERS. 
(Before that, they just rented gear and filled tanks).

Tom Long, the new owner,  made me the same deal: dive there
and it is free for me.  This is when I discovered that the west end
of St. Croix has generally better diving than the east side (except
for Buck Island, where the National Park service has flip flopped
back and forth over permitting scuba.) So I went to VI DIVERS less
often.  

CRUZAN DIVERS benefitted from this situation in another way also.
When I had a large group in the mid-1980's, I wanted to dive the
north shore off Gentle Winds, but no one at CRUZAN DIVERS knew
where that was. So I guided their dive boat to it (a relatively
short trip north around Hams's Bluff and past Cane Bay). It is
one of the best dives on the island when the weather is calm, and
CRUZAN DIVERS has done trips there ever since. (I had done that
dive with VI DIVERS several times, but it is closer to
CRUZAN DIVERS than to IV DIVERS).

And at the same time, Michell Pugh(sp?) who I knew as a diving
instructor at VI DIVERS, decided to start her own dive shop
at Salt River. She called it DIVE EXPERIENCE, Salt River is an
excellent dive area, and she made me the same deal as Tom Long
and Bill Walker.

Thus for the "glory years" of the 1980's, I had free diving just
about anywhere on the island. My school (Milton College) went
broke, but I continued to organize trips to St. Croix, composed
largely of former Milton students who had been on previous trips,
UW students, and some people who just came because they had heard
about the trips. Some were divers, some were not. Some did "resort
courses". Read my page.

But things slowly changed. The former students moved
or got married, or into jobs with little vacation time. DIVE
EXPERIENCE moved to C'Sted, Bill Walker left VI DIVERS. 
Then Hurricane Hugo disrupted the island. 

After Hugo, I could not get into Northside Valley because the
construction workers repairing the damage were staying there,
and paying a lot more than my groups ever did.

But there were still 6 who wanted to go to St. Croix, so I arrainged
a trip and we stayed at Spratt Hall (also a good location on the
west side.)  More on that later.

To conclude the Dive aspect: most shops will give free diving to
anyone who organizes a trip. If you think it is worth it, do it.

Many require you to have 10 people to dive free, but that will
vary. And if they know YOU, and consider that having YOU on the
dive will make it easier for them, (because you know the dive site
and can be the guide for some of the divers), or if they are having
a hard time filling their boat, they may waive this limit (as 
has happened to me).

So a Question for the economists: Is this an case of "use other 
people's trip to finance YOUR trip"?

AIR FARES

On my early trips, the college covered my air fare (I was teaching
a class ;-)  After the school closed, there was a time when I got a
discount on plane tickets when I bought them for a group. If there
were 10, mine was free.  The others paid the "book" price.

But more recently the entire airplane ticket situation has changed.
Since on recent trips, different people go at different times and
from different places, I have had each person arrainge their own
flights. 

I now use 

http://www.travelocity.com

and recommend it to others. I get no commission from them.

TRANSPORTATION & the Spratt Hall Trip.

Another aspect of a dive trip is transportation around the island.

At VIERS there was really no place to go, so this was not a factor.
Students who wanted to go into town (Cruze Bay) to watch the super
bowl left camp early in the morning and walked through miles of
jungle to centerline road, and then to town.

On St. Croix the first ten to twelve trips, I hired a van or station
wagon from a local guy named Johnny, who also served as driver. He
knew the island well and I learned of many interesting but out of
the way places. Also, I got the van for about the price of a car
rental: $250 a week, which was split up between everyone else in the
group except me.

After Hugo, Johnny changed phone numbers, and retired. So for the
next trip (the Spratt Hall Trip) I lined up a van from another local,
There were 6, and since the rental was not an especially good deal, 
we agreed to split the cost "equally", without any discussion of exactly 
what that term meant.

As it turned out, there were 3 different ideas of what it meant.

I (and some others) had assumed that each person would pay the same
"per person day".  The longer you were there, the greather your share 
of the bill. But (recall that some people were there longer
than others) some thought that everyone should pay the SAME total
amount; Rental/6 no matter how many days they were there. This
theory was favored by those who were there the longest.

But the counter theory was that each day should be billed separately.
Those who were there only during the time when everyone else was,
should pay less per day than those who were there for the same number
of days, but before of after some others came (or left).  If you
were there only during the "middle of the trip" your daily cost
chould be less than if you "came early" or "stayed late".

After much discussion (often heated) the "per person day" theory
was accepted, more because it was a compromise than because the
two groups saw its merits.

Obviously the "separate daily bill" would discourage anyone on
future trips from arriving early, getting the van, and picking
the others up at the airport: a significant cost saving since
the taxi fare from the airport is almost as much as the daily
car rental.

As a result of that experience, I just included the (estimated)
car/van cost in the daily trip price. Depending on just how
many people, sometimes I come out ahead, sometimes behind. There
is an non-linear relationship. Four people can fit in one car,
(and I win), but if there are 5, a mini-van is required (and I
lose).  At 6, I am back to even, but 7 requires a big van and
I lose again until there are about 9. If 10 to 15 people were
to come, I would be ahead on the van rental AND could dive
for free. That happened last in 1987. (and I don't take more
than 15 since that fills the largest van).

"I win" here means I pay less than the others. "I lose" means I 
pay more.  Win some. lose some.

The most recent trip had 6 people, 3 of them divers. Just
enough to have dive buddies. Last year there was only one
other diver interested, and I figured that if one of us was
not up to diving, it would not be fair for the other. When
there were just 3 divers, there were often just two ready to
do a given dive. That seems to be the lower limit for a trip.

NOTE TO THE ECONOMISTS: diving is considered unsafe unless done
in pairs or small groups. For any given dive, 2 is enough, but
for a several day trip I think 3 is the minimum since not everyone
wants to do every dive.  This becomes an important limit when
diving the west coast of St. Croix since it is a little known
area, and there are frequently no other divers except the ones 
that came with me.

HOTELS

For St. Croix, for me only the west side is considered. Northside 
Valley was both less expensive and generally better suited for diving 
than Spratt Hall, the only alternative, except for staying in F'stead. 

By staying in town and doing boat dives every day, you could get
by without a car.  But this is just my idea of a dive trip. 
People who do want that have many options, and  F'sted is where I would 
recommend to anyone who wanted to do a lot of boat dives and eat out 
every night. There are several nice places to eat there. Not nearly as
many as in C'sted, but the diving is so much better on the west coast.

As with the dive shops, many hotels will give a discount to trip
organizers, depending on their situation.  Northside valley does
(but it is not exactly a "hotel"). I stay there free.

IS THIS SPAM?

SO, is my post asking that anyone interested in a dive trip to
St. Croix to look at my web page commercial SPAM, or is it within
the accepted news group policy for rec.scuba.location (for information
about diving locations), and is this post suitable for sci.econ?

AND

jim blair said...

>Well those are lower prices than I expected. And I have never been to
>Cozumel. And I may try it someday.  BUT...

Yeah I know... you want to bring people to your house in VI :)
Been advertising it here for years!!

>When I asked him about Cozumel, he indicated that the diving and the
>overall experience is very different from St. Croix.  Much more crowded
>dive sites. When we dive most St. Croix sites, we are the only ones

Then he selected the wrong dive operator.... many will move to another site 
if the selected one has too many boats. All the reefs are in effect in a 
long line up the coast.... so one can just move to an adjacent one.




REPLY:
jeb, on the comparison between cozumel & STX


there, except sometimes we see other divers at Cane Bay. Also the
currents are much stronger than he was used to in STX.

>Naturally... it is drift (current diving) so unlike STX you do not have to 
>return whence you came.... he should have been going with the flow ;)

Hi,
I have done drift diving at Cancun. It is just that neither Kieth
nor I like it as well.  Can't stop and take a good look at the items
of interest.

But another difference is where we stay. The Cozumel links advertised
hotel rooms, and in the city. In STX we stay in houses on a wooded

>San Miguel a city? :)

Well, that is what Kieth said.

And there, like here, you can eat for
a week for the price of one or two meals  out. I have bought fresh
tuna for $5.00 a pound (cleaned) and grilled it for dinner, flavored
with wild thyme leaves that I picked near the house.

>Well at Tacos La Mission 6 of us ate supper with two beers each for $35.... 
>not much more than self preparation I would say?

There are two differen kinds of restaurants in St. Croix. The tourist
oriented ones are rather pricy by Madison standards. But even the ones
where the locals eat (my favorites) are more expensive than that.
Typically, a  counch dinner is about $10 at Villa Morales.

>You can stay in Villas in or out of town and prepare locally purchased food 
>in Cozumel too. 
>That is not my interest because I am on holiday and I enjoy exploring 
>different eating establishments, bars, shops etc:
>I would guess the restaurant selection in San Miguel is greater than on STX.

I doubt that, if you include all the expensive tourist ones. See my web 
page for some.  But it sounds like we have different ideas about what
a diving trip is all about.


Also, I hear that some of the nice reefs on Cozumel have recently
had cruise ship piers built over them.

>Then they stretched the truth!

>You want to really compare?
>http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/8092/next.txt
>$50/person/day for room and transport, $60 for two tank boat dives, $8/day 
>tank, weights may be extra!!

Yes, but the boat dives are only $25 per tank if you do 10 dives. And
the tanks are $40 per week for shore dives, but the new guy there said
that extra fill will be $3.50 each. Not as good as deal as last time :-(
Weight is $2 per day (but I should have enough for 4 people at Northside
and that is free)

I have tanks at Northside also, but it was not worth it to renew
the hydro on them some years back. If I had enough people interested, 
I would go back to providing tanks.  But that does not seem likely.

>How you see $350/wk for the room and transport as being cheaper than Cozumel 
>(I quoted $369 for room and 10 boat dives) is beyond me..... I think clearly 
>your intent is not to look at alternatives, you want people to come with you 
>to VI.
>Why could that be?

First, many of the shore dives on St. Croix are very good, I would
say (based on Kieth's comments) that they are better than the boat
dives on Cozumel. Or than the boat dives on St. Martin.

Second, the weather is likely to be better in St. Croix during
the winter. Cozumel is too close to the continent. Even Jamaica
get "northers" in the winter; I know, I was there.

As a result of this, and maybe of the peso problem, St. Croix
is a more expensive island. Did you see this from
Lee McCreery ? (speaking of hotel rates
on St. Croix)

Lee McCreery :
>  I looked at other hotels on the island and the
>average rate per room was around $120 - $150 per night.

That is typical for St. Croix. It is not the cheapest place
to dive. For that I would dive lake Mendota.  If I ever
find better diving, I will go there instead. (and I do plan
to go back to Egypt, the only place where I have seen better
diving than St. Croix).

                     ,,,,,,,
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jim blair (jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu) Madison Wisconsin
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