Rough costs for opening a dive centre in the Philippines.

[greatwhite]

Hi,

I know this is a very open question but here goes,

I often talk to a good friend of mine about opening a dive centre together. We love to dive, long dives and dive for as long as possible and that is what we would like to offer our customers (not, as soon as we hit 50 mins we surface). We have done lot's of diving together in the Philippines and thought about something there. Perhaps Bohol.

My question is, how far would £80,000 - £100,000's get you with opening a dive centre in the Philippines? Would it cover the costs for a new boat, decent compressor, say enough full sets of equipment for say, 10 divers, 20 tanks and all the insurance costs? May be a shop would need to be rented with a toilet, shower, electricity to start with to be in our budget?

We could offer courses, but would a diver centre survive if we just offered diving to qualified divers? Like I said, we would aim at not having a time limit on dives. May this bring in more divers?

I know what I have said is very brief, but I am just trying to get some thoughts going.

Thanks

[steelemonkey]

"To make a small fortune out of diving, start off with a large one."

[greatwhite]

"To make a small fortune out of diving, start off with a large one."

I have a friend in Moalboal with a dive centre and he is jam packed everyday. He even turns people away. He actually seems to do well and it is not a fancy centre at all.

Can you make a living though and cover all costs?

[Chrisch]

I have a friend in Moalboal with a dive centre and he is jam packed everyday. He even turns people away. He actually seems to do well and it is not a fancy centre at all.

Can you make a living though and cover all costs?

It is possible to make a living doing just about anything. If you want to set up a business in the Philippines you need to know what your capital will buy there, that is pretty specialist knowledge and I doubt you will get it on here unless you are very lucky.

Given that the world is now looking long and hard at whether or not it will ever be possible to travel again as we have done before I would say that it is very difficult to know what the future holds. What is and what will be the quarantine period for tourists coming into your local airport for the next few years? Also what quarantine will be required for them going home? Where will the come from? I guess the US is a big source so you might get more data on Scubaboard.

We are about to enter a depression in my opinion. I really want to be wrong but it is a real possibility.

Not trying to put you off, just you really need to think about it.

[Edward3c]

Most basic question: why do you want to own and run a dive centre?

If its just to offer long dives, maybe all you need is to run a tour company and buy boat space from other operators. Remember the main reason for limiting dives is to run two or three trips a day maximising revenue.

We had a couple in my last club who ran diving trips worldwide, but had to give the business up because of the Travel Package Regulations. One of their ‘friends’ reported them to Trading Standards. You need to check whether the countries you want to operate in have similar laws.

Your biggest obstacle could be being allowed to own or run a business as a non-national.

[Ian@1904]

Have you ever run a business before? There are many costs often forgotten about: staff holidays, boat servicing, stock of spares for customers, spare compressor for when the main one is not operational, advertising.
Do you like paperwork? Most businesses have a lot of paperwork to handle: dive logs of depth and time, diver qualifications, compressor logs, cylinder testing, reg testing. If something goes wrong you will need all of this paperwork.
Have you ever dealt face to face with the general public in respect of customer service? Some people are complete @rses
Do you have boat driving qualifications?
The locals might not be too happy about a new competitor business starting up. So expect everything from legal claims, lies about you to outright intimidation
Running a dive business is very different to going diving
Building up a good reputation takes a lot of hard work, and it can easily be lost.

I am not saying don't go for it. You will love the dive centre the day that you buy it and the day that you sell it. Personally I would keep the £100k, and go diving as much as you can around the world.

[Stuart Keasley]

As far as I'm aware, foreigners aren't allowed to own properties or businesses in the Philipinnes, so you'd have to go into partnership with a Philippino, if anything went awry then the law would be on their side, you'd lose all your assets/investment.

[Chrisch]

This clarifies Stuart's point a little but is more about corporate - https://enterph.com/blog/the-expats-...e-philippines/

[iain/hsm]

Hi,

My question is, how far would £80,000 - £100,000's get you. Would it cover the costs for a decent compressor, Thanks

Just about.

[greatwhite]

Just about.

Only the compressor?

[jb2cool]

I have a friend in Moalboal with a dive centre and he is jam packed everyday. He even turns people away. He actually seems to do well and it is not a fancy centre at all.

Can you make a living though and cover all costs?

Why don’t you ask your friend in Moalboal? They are surely in a better position to answer than anyone else.

[greatwhite]

Why don’t you ask your friend in Moalboal? They are surely in a better position to answer than anyone else.

True. But I don't want to sound like I am being nosey about how much he earns. Also, what works for him may not work for others. I was more interested in the setting up costs.

[iain/hsm]

Only the compressor?

Nah only kidding unless your planning on going offshore with it in an ISO container.

Set up cost against recovery costs are also an interesting study. I have done this for a number of folk on recompression chambers. Set up cost 80K recovery cost billed direct to the NHS for a type II bend is 30K per treatment and for a type I about 8K , DAN insurance for a small two man pot on some far flung island or vessel pay out considerably less for the same treatment paid for by the NHS but because your not waiting 3 days to fly back home or to the mainland for treatment in a big hospital your delay in going to a hospital puts your guest in a wheelchair as a result. But no matter you get to see the just how and why stuff works for the dive industry.

Second players in the game so to speak are the hotel complex folk. Diving to them is just another service offered to guests, generally they will provide the “Beach Hut” and power, some even provide the compressor and some kit. All you do is the pool try dives for kids and daily trips to the pre arranged reefs.

Third down is probably where your aiming for, the independent operator you get to haul all the kit on site then get stuffed by the natives and the red tape. Local chief of police and the harbourmaster are you friends. Airlines, local hotel operators, and booking agents are your partners. That way they get them in and out, fed and watered. And you get the glowing face ache accolades for the clueless numpties that turn up, telling you about whale watching last year of a speck so far away you’d think it was on Mars.

Just be sure you want to do this.

[Ian@1904]

If you did set up from fresh then there is going to be a period where you have no customers. So how you market the business is going to be very important.
Then you have to ensure a slick operation right from the start, not as easy as it sounds. Slick operations tend to be arrived at after a lot of trial and error, you operations will be changed once you are in contact with the customer.
Are you going to be checking certs and dive insurance? What about the numptie that cannot assemble their dive kit?-"the other dive centre did this all for me...."
Don't forget the risk assessments....

[jb2cool]

See if your mate who already has a thriving business wants to franchise out. That way you can benefit from his local knowledge and contacts as well as the pre-existing customer-base/brand.