Will Dive Shops Still Be Here in 10 Years?
Benjamin Hadfield Sep 07, 2026
Will Dive Shops Still Be Here in 10 Years?
By Benjamin Hadfield, Stuart Scuba
Yes. I believe dive shops will still be here in ten years. Some will be doing very well. But I would not bet on every community having the same access to a good shop, affordable fills, qualified instruction, or a dependable dive boat that it has today.
The part I am least confident about is the traditional arrangement: sell equipment, keep training prices low, provide plenty of advice for free, and hope enough money remains to maintain everything that makes the diving possible.
That arrangement is under pressure. A shop can look busy, have customers who love it, and still be working its way toward closing. A boat can leave the dock full and return without earning enough to cover its true cost. An instructor can spend the whole weekend teaching and discover that the person delivering the pizza earned more per hour.
Those are business problems with consequences for divers.
Nikki and I own Stuart Scuba, so I have a stake in this conversation. I want local dive businesses to succeed. I also believe a customer deserves a fair price, competent service, and a straight answer. Owning a dive shop does not entitle me to anyone’s money. Caring about our customers does not make the bills disappear, either.
If we want an honest conversation, we have to make room for both of those truths.
First, we need to be careful with the statement that the industry is down 35%.
There is a defensible long-term number close to that. The Business of Diving Institute’s published series, attributed to DEMA estimates, puts annual U.S. entry-level open-water certifications at approximately 198,000 in 2001 and 128,000 in 2023. That is a decline of about 35%. It measures new entry-level certifications over 22 years. It does not establish that all diving revenue, all participation, or every shop fell 35% recently.
|
Year |
Reported U.S. entry-level certifications |
|
2001 |
198,241 |
|
2006 |
162,205 |
|
2019 |
Approximately 151,000 |
|
2020 |
Approximately 87,000 |
|
2023 |
Approximately 128,000 |
The 2001 and 2006 figures come from DEMA’s historical census table; the later rounded estimates come from the Business of Diving Institute’s published series. These sources provide context across years, rather than one unchanged survey panel.
The pandemic explains the particularly deep hole in 2020. It does not explain a decline that began before it.
The current picture is uneven. Cline Group’s second-quarter 2026 survey reported the following comparisons with the same quarter of 2025:
|
Business measure |
Respondents reporting a decrease |
Respondents reporting an increase |
|
Gross revenue |
45.6% |
24.6% |
|
Equipment sales |
46.7% |
26.7% |
|
Travel sales |
29.5% |
34.1% |
These percentages describe respondents, not the size of an industrywide decline. The same report estimated U.S. retail open-water certifications at 38,848 for Q2 2026, versus 27,921 for Q2 2025. That is evidence of strength in one part of the market alongside weakness elsewhere. These are survey-based estimates, separate from the agency certification census.
We should take the encouraging numbers seriously. A prediction that everything is dying would be just as careless as pretending every business is recovering.
There is also a difference between someone who dives occasionally and someone who regularly supports a local diving community. The Business of Diving Institute’s analysis of U.S. participation data through 2023 reported five-year average annual growth of 2.7% among casual participants, while core participation declined 0.7%. In that analysis, core means eight or more dives a year.
A person who enjoys two dives on vacation is still a diver and deserves a good experience. But a shop’s equipment, fill, and service demand will look different if more customers participate that way. We cannot build a business around how often we wish people would dive.
Counting the shops themselves is harder than it should be.
The most honest present-day description I can support is that recent industry inventories identify roughly 880 to 986 U.S. physical dive retailers, depending on the source and definition. That range is not a statistical confidence interval or a count of every instructor, charter business, resort, and online seller.
The broad historical comparison suggests hundreds fewer physical outlets. It does not give us an audited 2006-to-2026 closure total. I could not verify a national series tracking the same definition of a shop across that entire period. The difference between the 2023 and later inventories also cannot, by itself, establish how many new stores opened.
An older example shows why this matters. DEMA’s 2007 document, citing Dive Center Business Magazine, listed 887 U.S. store closures and 795 openings during 1999–2006: a net reduction of 92. For 2006 alone, it listed 152 closures and 88 openings. Gross closures and net loss are different numbers. We need that same clarity today.
A business owner needs better information than an old directory and a depressing conversation at a trade show. We need an annual, consistently defined count of operating shops, fill stations, training locations, and charter capacity. We also need to know where access is disappearing. Losing the only fill station in a region matters differently from one store closing down the street from three others.
The Amazon shopper belongs in this conversation, but deserves a fair hearing.
If someone can find the right product at a better price, order after work, and have it delivered conveniently, that is a reasonable purchasing decision. A household has its own budget. The customer did not create the shop’s rent, inventory choices, or staffing problems.
Sometimes the online seller answers questions faster. Sometimes it has the size the local store does not carry. Sometimes the local store has done a poor job explaining why its offer is worth considering. We need to be honest about those situations, too.
The difficulty comes when the sale and the work supporting the sale become separated.
Suppose a customer spends an hour getting fitted, comparing equipment, and learning how it works at a shop, then buys elsewhere to save a few dollars. The customer received something useful. The shop paid someone to provide it. If that pattern becomes the business model, the shop becomes an unpaid showroom.
That is an economic problem we can solve without making the customer feel unwelcome.
Shops can charge clearly for fitting, configuration, diagnostics, and instruction where those services warrant a charge. They can credit an agreed fitting fee toward a purchase. They can provide useful packages with a real explanation of what is included. Those arrangements need to be disclosed before the work begins.
A shop should also welcome equipment purchased elsewhere when it has the authorization, parts, and competence to service it. Charge fairly for the work. Explain genuine limitations. Turning a new customer into an argument about where they bought their regulator seems like an expensive way to prove a point.
Online buyers should check the actual seller, authorized-dealer status, warranty terms, and service support. An online purchase is not automatically a bad purchase. A local purchase is not automatically the best one.
There is evidence that customers value what a good shop provides. DEMA’s 2024 Fast Facts, drawing on its 2023 diver study, rated knowledgeable staff at 4.3 out of 5 and equipment service availability at 4.0 when choosing where to buy; free shipping scored 3.0. That tells us expertise matters. It does not tell us customers will pay an unlimited premium for it.
The constant requests for discounts add another layer.
There is nothing wrong with asking whether a package, weekday rate, or group arrangement is available. There is also nothing wrong with a business explaining that its price is already the price it needs to charge.
Here is a simple illustration, not a statement about anyone’s actual margins. A product sells for $100 and costs the store $60. That leaves $40 before overhead. Give a 10% discount, and the remaining $30 is 25% less gross profit. The store would need to sell about one-third more units to recover the same gross profit, assuming the same unit cost.
Discounts can make sense when they produce business that would otherwise be lost, fill a quiet departure, or reflect a genuine reduction in the cost of serving a group. They become a problem when every customer is taught to wait for the next one.
Affordability matters. We need sensible rental options, useful used-equipment programs, shore-diving opportunities, and ways to spread participation through the year. But an affordable course still has to pay for the training it promises. A discounted charter still needs a maintained boat and a properly prepared crew.
It helps to understand the person carrying those obligations.
There is no single average dive shop owner. A destination business, a suburban training store, and a technical service center can have very different economics. In one Business of Diving Institute survey, U.S. shops reported average 2023 annual revenue of $541,200. The publisher specifically cautioned that respondents tend to skew toward stronger or larger establishments. That figure is sales, not owner income, and it should not be mistaken for a reliable national median.
A small owner-operated shop can require the same person to teach, buy inventory, answer messages, manage repairs, organize travel, and work through a weather cancellation. Loving diving helps someone accept that workload. It does not necessarily prepare them to price it.
One of the hardest questions an owner can ask is whether the business could afford to replace the work they do. If the apparent profit disappears when the owner receives reasonable compensation, the business needs attention. Unpaid owner labor is still labor.
That matters when someone wants to retire or sell. A buyer needs an operation that can function, documented procedures, capable staff, and earnings that survive a change of ownership. Otherwise, what looks like a valuable community institution may be an exhausting job that nobody can afford to take over.
We should respect that owner without pretending every decision they made was right. Passion deserves consideration. It cannot substitute for bookkeeping, consistent service, or a plan.
The consequences reach well beyond shopping.
Where will people get their fills if their local shop closes?
There are alternatives: specialist fill stations, clubs, regional service centers, or operations built around boats and marinas. Some communities may be served better by a different arrangement. A retail storefront is not the only possible home for a compressor.
Every arrangement still needs enough revenue to maintain equipment, obtain appropriate gas-quality testing, train staff, handle cylinders correctly, and replace machinery. Selling a fill below its sustainable cost does not make those obligations cheaper.
The danger is a gradual loss of convenience. A nearby fill becomes a long drive. A repair takes longer. The local pool session disappears. A new diver cannot find an easy next dive. Participation becomes harder to fit into ordinary life, which further reduces the business available to whoever remains.
Boat access has the same problem. Some diving is accessible from shore. Other diving depends on a suitable vessel, a capable captain, trained crew, reliable maintenance, and workable access to a dock. Owning good equipment does not provide any of those things.
A boat ticket pays for more than the fuel burned that morning. It has to contribute toward the days the boat cannot operate and the major work that will eventually come due. Filling a boat is useful only if the departure contributes enough to keeping the operation healthy.
Insurance and lawsuits make that calculation harder, and they deserve more care than a rant about lawyers.
People injured through negligence deserve a meaningful opportunity to seek compensation. Families who lose someone deserve answers. Being a small business cannot excuse failures that put people at risk.
The Conception fire on September 2, 2019, killed 34 people. The NTSB identified failures of operator oversight, including the required roving patrol, and problems involving fire detection and escape arrangements. Any discussion of the rules that followed has to remember why people demanded change.
The December 2022 legislation changed the liability framework for covered small passenger vessels. Current federal law excludes those vessels from most of the relevant limitation-of-liability chapter and restricts their ability to contractually shorten certain injury and death claim periods below two years. The details depend on the vessel and claim; these provisions do not apply identically to every boat.
The financial pressure reported by operators is substantial. In a January 2026 brief, DEMA described a West Palm Beach operator reporting a $165,000 increase in annual insurance costs. It also reported Texas and Florida businesses closing or being sold because of heightened insurance costs. These are examples reported by an industry association advocating reform, not independently audited national averages.
I do not have a reliable national series showing how frequently dive businesses are being sued or what proportion of those claims lack merit. Premium increases alone cannot answer those questions. An allegation also does not establish negligence, and an accident does not automatically mean a professional did something wrong.
From an insurer’s side, a policy has to account for potentially severe injuries, defense costs, and the uncertainty of future claims. From an operator’s side, a major increase can make safe, otherwise workable departures financially impossible. From an injured person’s side, reducing available compensation can leave a family carrying costs it did not cause.
All three concerns are legitimate.
DEMA’s proposed DIVE BOAT Act changes seek different treatment for day boats and adjustments to claim timelines for overnight vessels. I believe targeted reform deserves serious examination, alongside evidence of the likely premium benefit and the effect on injured passengers. Preserving safety requirements and meaningful accountability should be part of that examination.
The concern about some boats choosing to operate without insurance also needs a direct answer. I cannot verify how widespread that is, and I will not attach a percentage or an operator’s name to it without evidence. When an operator chooses to run without appropriate commercial liability coverage, the potential financial loss still exists. It may land on the business, its people, an injured customer, or a family.
There is a distinction between retaining the risk of damage to your own hull and lacking liability protection for the people your operation could harm. A customer’s personal dive-accident policy serves a different purpose from an operator’s liability coverage. DAN explains that distinction in its insurance guidance.
Customers should be comfortable asking what commercial coverage applies to the trip. Operators should have their broker confirm that their actual vessel, activities, and personnel are appropriately covered. A waiver should never be treated as a substitute for that conversation.
I understand the pressure behind trying to remove a large expense. I cannot recommend making the business affordable by leaving people exposed to losses they may assume are insured.
Agency standards belong in this discussion because training is both a professional obligation and a business expense.
A certification has to mean the student met the required performance standard. PADI describes its system as performance-based, with students progressing as they demonstrate mastery. SDI’s current open-water standards explicitly address reducing ratios for conditions and other factors, including current, difficult entries, boat diving, and students needing additional attention.
That means an advertised maximum ratio cannot become an automatic staffing target. A course schedule also cannot guarantee that every student will be ready on the same afternoon. We have to price and explain training in a way that allows us to honor those obligations.
At the same time, longer does not automatically mean better. An organized, attentive course can use time well. A long course can waste it. We should judge the quality of instruction and the student’s demonstrated ability, while meeting all applicable requirements.
Agencies have useful work to fund: educational materials, standards development, professional support, and quality management. Shops benefit from those systems. The commercial tension is that an organization paid when training products or certifications are issued has an incentive to increase volume. That incentive warrants scrutiny; it is not evidence that a particular agency is acting improperly.
I want agencies to help professionals explain why a student needs more practice, investigate credible complaints consistently, provide a fair process for everyone involved, and make changes easy to understand. I would also like more attention paid to what happens after certification. Did the student keep diving? Could they use their skills comfortably in the conditions they were trained for? Did the next instructor have to repair avoidable gaps?
Professionals need to accept that scrutiny, too. The logo on an instructor card cannot do the teaching. We should be able to discuss a student’s actual needs without turning every conversation into an agency rivalry.
Overregulation is another word that needs unpacking.
A law, an agency standard, a manufacturer’s procedure, an insurance condition, and a shop’s own operational rule are different things. A customer deserves to know which one applies. If we impose an additional restriction because of conditions on our boat, we should explain that decision honestly.
I support challenging duplicated paperwork, inconsistent interpretation, unnecessary delays, and requirements whose costs are out of proportion to a demonstrated benefit. Small businesses do not have unlimited administrative capacity. A simpler process can make compliance better.
I also support rules that protect passengers, workers, marine life, and public access. Cutting every requirement because compliance costs money would be irresponsible. The useful questions are specific: What harm does this rule address? Does it work? Could we achieve the same protection more clearly and affordably? Who carries the cost if we remove it?
Environmental protection belongs in the business plan as well. A damaged reef is a poorer place to take people diving. Access rules should be workable and based on evidence, and divers should have a voice in them. Protecting the places we use and maintaining reasonable access to them are both necessary for the future.
Artificial intelligence will change how people find diving, how shops operate, and how diving research is conducted. I expect it to be useful. I also expect it to create some very convincing mistakes.
For a small business, I would start with ordinary work: drafting a response, organizing a schedule, preparing a service reminder, or helping analyze information the shop already has permission to use. The benefit should be more time available for customers and better follow-through. Someone still needs to verify prices, availability, policies, and anything involving safety.
An automated reminder can tell a diver that equipment service is due. It cannot truthfully record that a technician completed work the technician never performed. AI should never manufacture training records, customer experiences, inspection results, or qualifications.
For consumers, AI can make diving information easier to approach. A person can ask an awkward beginner question privately, compare course descriptions, or prepare better questions for an instructor. I welcome a customer who wants to understand the reasoning. Knowledge grows when given away.
The difficulty is that a fluent answer can still be false. NIST identifies confidently generated false information as a recognized risk of generative AI and recommends checking sources and citations. An impressive paragraph with a reference at the end is not proof that the reference supports it.
In diving, the useful habit is to open the source, check its date, and identify what kind of evidence it contains. A manufacturer’s current manual, a training standard, a published study, a marketing page, and a forum opinion answer different questions. AI can help locate and explain them. It can also mix them together unless someone checks.
I would not use a general chatbot to approve someone’s fitness to dive, create a personalized decompression schedule, or override the captain’s assessment of conditions. Those decisions require appropriate expertise and information. Making a wrong answer easier to read does not make it less wrong.
The scientific opportunities are more substantial than simply generating diving articles. A 2025 study involving 59 divers and 359 no-decompression air dives found that machine-learning approaches improved predictions of post-dive bubble grades. That is interesting research, but predicting a bubble measurement is different from proving that an AI system prevents decompression sickness. The authors described limitations and further work needed for real-time application.
NOAA-supported research has also tested CoralNet for automated analysis of reef imagery, with strong results for coral-cover estimates and more mixed performance for some other classifications. These tools can help researchers process observations that would otherwise require substantial manual work. The quality of the observations and validation still matters.
I can imagine future tools helping instructors review patterns in a student’s dives or helping operators spot maintenance trends. Those uses should earn trust through testing. A dashboard that looks scientific is not enough.
There is a commercial risk as well. If customers increasingly ask an AI service to choose their course, equipment, and boat, whoever controls that recommendation may control a valuable part of the customer relationship. Shops will need accurate, accessible information and a clear reason to be chosen. They will also need to avoid becoming completely dependent on a platform whose fees or recommendations they cannot control.
Other industries offer useful parallels, without providing a ready-made answer.
Independent bookstores give us a reason to resist fatalism. The American Booksellers Association reported 605 new physical, pop-up, and mobile stores in 2025, alongside membership growth. That is not a net national store count or proof that every bookstore is profitable. It does show that local retail can attract new operators despite powerful online competition.
Bicycle retail offers another example. Trek lets customers order online and collect a bicycle through a retailer that assembles it. The digital purchase and local professional service can be connected. Diving manufacturers should examine arrangements that fairly compensate the people providing fitting, setup, and ongoing support.
Fitness businesses offer a practical comparison, too. Access to information about exercise does not eliminate the value of a good coach or a convenient place to train. But a membership has to provide something people actually use. A dive-club fee with an empty calendar will not solve much.
These parallels suggest adaptation is possible. They do not guarantee that every shop survives, or that sentiment will cover an operating loss.
Here is the future I can reasonably picture. This is a scenario for 2036, not a forecast of a particular company.
A diver books online and sees the full cost, expected conditions, requirements, and what happens if weather changes the plan. The shop already has the relevant booking information, so the first interaction at the counter is useful rather than another round of avoidable paperwork.
The retail floor carries equipment people can try, compare, rent, and have supported. Some less frequently requested items come through dependable ordering arrangements. A trained person gets paid for fitting and setup. The service department has clear prices and traceable work records.
The fill operation is either on site or part of a reliable regional arrangement. Customers know when and where they can obtain fills. The boat schedule connects several local training businesses with enough committed customers to support viable departures. Each business sets its own prices and competes on the experience it provides.
A new diver leaves with a practical opportunity to dive again. There are suitable activities for people with different interests and experience levels. Technical diving is available where the staff and facilities support it, but becoming more advanced is not a requirement for belonging.
Some successful businesses will be large regional centers with pools, service departments, and boats. Others will be smaller neighborhood operations using shared facilities and dependable partners. Specialists may concentrate on instruction, repairs, adaptive programs, photography, or a particular style of diving. No single format will suit every community.
The owner can take a day off because essential knowledge is documented and other people are trained to use it. AI handles some administrative work. People remain responsible for what the business promises and what happens in the water.
There is a less attractive future, too: a few strong destinations and large operators remain accessible, while other communities lose convenient fills, pool access, and local boats. Diving continues, but requires more travel, planning, and money. That could leave fewer practical ways for a new diver with an ordinary budget to stay involved.
The existence of dive shops somewhere in 2036 would not make that a satisfactory outcome.
We need a plan that gives everyone something practical to do now.
For consumers, start with the next purchase or booking. Compare the complete offer: equipment, support, training time, rental costs, and the actual departure. Tell the shop your budget and give it a chance to offer a workable option. Pay for professional work you request. Ask reasonable questions about safety and commercial coverage. If you value local diving, book some local diving; a useful review and a referral help, but participating is what keeps departures and programs viable. You are still entitled to take your business elsewhere when the service does not deserve it.
For instructors and divemasters, calculate what you earn over the whole job, including preparation, messages, travel, equipment handling, and records. Keep your qualifications and applicable coverage current. Explain extra training needs early and document actual performance. During the next 30 days, work with a shop or operator on a suitable follow-up opportunity for recent students. Help divers find instruction you are not equipped to provide. A referral handled professionally gives the customer a reason to trust you again.
For dive-boat operators, work out the real cost of a completed departure and the contribution needed toward fixed costs and replacement reserves. Review coverage with your broker before a renewal becomes an emergency. Build the next 90 days of departures with realistic demand and clear arrangements for partner shops. Confirm booking deadlines, payments, cancellations, and responsibility for customer communication. Practice emergency procedures and keep records that reflect what was actually done. A full boat should be the result of good planning, not pressure to accept unsuitable conditions or divers.
For shop owners, use the next 30 days to review each department’s economics, aged inventory, unpaid owner labor, and obligations to customers. Over the following 60 days, test one specific improvement: a regularly scheduled local dive, a clearly priced service package, or a partnership that makes training easier to access. Measure whether it works. Track repeat participation, the proportion of new divers returning within 90 days, the contribution from completed departures and courses, and the cash available after obligations. An email list is useful; it is not a count of active divers. Put a succession plan on paper, even if retirement is years away.
For agencies and manufacturers, make support for the local professional economically real. Provide clear standards updates, practical quality-management support, dependable parts access, and reasonable compensation for work performed on your behalf. Give shops ways to participate in digital sales without leaving them to absorb the service workload for free. Support consistent market data and research on driver retention. For policymakers and insurers, examine specific rules and risks with operators and consumer representatives, and measure whether proposed changes preserve protection while improving affordability.
We all need to play well in the sandbox. In practical terms, that means honoring referral arrangements, paying partners as agreed, accepting competent divers from other training systems, and discussing concerns directly instead of building a business around criticizing the shop down the road. We can cooperate on access, education, and safety while remaining independent competitors.
I want someone who learns to dive today to be able to walk into a good shop ten years from now, get their equipment serviced, fill their cylinders, and find people to dive with. I want the instructor, technician, captain, and shop owner helping them to be paid enough to keep doing the work properly.
That is the future I am willing to work toward. The next step is making our prices, promises, and everyday decisions support it.
