Originally from the UK, Simon Mowbray was inspired to move to the Philippines after a holiday to dive the famous local shipwrecks. Here he set up Pirate Divers Busuanga, which after rapid expansion became a PADI Dive Centre at the end of 2019 and is now a PADI Five Star Dive Resort.
With a strong focus on running the business as efficiently as possible, Simon was looking for ways to both increase his customer base and tip the balance between bookings and walk-in business. Having embraced PADI Adventures as part of his sales and marketing strategy, Pirate Divers Busuanga is now reaping the benefits in terms of increased customer bookings and an evolution of the business.
Q. What business challenge did you face?
A. We felt we couldn’t expand as we wanted to under another agency.
We had already been operating for about five years under another agency and we felt that we couldn’t expand as we wanted to. So, I met with the PADI Regional Manager of the Philippines at the time, and it turned out [crossing over to PADI] wasn’t going to be that complicated, and so we went for it in November 2019, which was around five months before the lockdown.
Once we were an official PADI Center, we were flying – it was the best six months we’d had as a business and that was just our period of getting to know the PADI System. We were attached to a five-star resort at the time and when we re-opened after lockdown, we upgraded to a PADI Five Star Dive Center.
We spoke to our Regional Manager and he asked, “What do you want to gain? What do you want to improve?” We wanted to improve our bookings; before the pandemic around 70% of our guests were walk-ins, and only about 30% were booking ahead. Our idea was to try and increase our bookings as it’s very hard to plan when you get mostly walk-in business, and the hope was that we could then also increase our course numbers in general. Adding Adventures to our website seemed to be the solution we were looking for as we could market the dives as a bookable experience and encourage our customers to come through this channel.
Q. Did you have any concerns in working with PADI?
A. The fees … but the difference is so small as to be negligible.
Throughout the pandemic, I learned quite a lot about how these sales processes work and so I was quite trusting in terms of the technology. My primary concern was the fees.
However, when I compared the fee that PADI takes if customers book through Adventures, and the amount that is taken when we take payment through our card machine, the difference is so small as to be negligible. In addition to that, through embedding the PADI widget into our site, we were avoiding the cost of converting to an eCommerce site, which has potentially saved us thousands of pounds.
I’ve been asked if I had any concerns in being an early adopter of PADI Adventures, but as I see it there’s no negative here. It cost me no money to list my activities on the platform, so even if I only took one booking from it, I would have already gained! Honestly, I think it’s silly not to add your listing on there.
Q. How did PADI help you solve the problem?
A. Our Regional Manager worked with us from the start.
Our Regional Manager worked with us from the start to make sure that this process was as smooth as possible. His advice was to start by improving our website, so we worked with a recommended supplier to put that into action. I was already employing someone to look after our social media, and when we put everything together, we started to see positive results.
It was also recommended that we embed the PADI Adventures widget into our site, which as I’ve mentioned saved us the cost of converting to an eCommerce site. Interestingly though, we’ve also seen that having this has increased consumer confidence with online bookings. Previously we had found that established divers would have contacted us directly, perhaps via email, to book with us, but we would have been asking them to transfer money directly to us and I think there’s always an element of nervousness around that. Newer divers who are less familiar with the industry perhaps would have booked through a third party, or been one of our walk-ins. I believe we were one of the first stores in the region to embed the widget into our site, and it feels like divers now have more confidence booking this way as it feels more professional; and safer for both us and them.
Q. How is it working now?
A. Bookings have massively increased.
A combination of everything – the website, the social media, PADI Adventures and the general PADI marketing – has massively increased our bookings. It’s come at a great time as we’ve seen this reflected in changing market trends too, as now people tend to book activities in advance when they go on holiday rather than just turning up at a destination.
We’ve also seen improved traffic on our website – adding Adventures has helped with our SEO ranking, too. And it’s only getting better; more and more of our Open Water courses are booked this way, as well as some Advanced Open Water and a few Rescue Diver courses.
I would say that previously we were getting about 30% of our business through bookings, and now it’s jumped to around 75% of our courses and around 50% of the fun dives that are pre-booked. And it’s brilliant because although the audience is coming from Facebook, Instagram, our website, PADI, it all links to our WhatsApp so we can streamline our communications more effectively.
Overall, it’s made a positive difference to the business. We now have a much better idea of how many divers we’re going to see in a month, which means that the Instructors know how much they’ll be earning (without any walk-in business added), and I know when I need to plan on employing freelance Instructors to meet demand.
We can also plan ahead more effectively for the business; I might need a new compressor or to buy some new tanks, or I might even need to rent equipment – this ability to plan has then allowed us to increase our capacity.
Q. What’s your advice to others facing a similar challenge?
A. Crossover to PADI and use PADI Adventures; both of which have made a world of difference to our business.
Really, I would just say to talk to your PADI Regional Manager. I think there are some instances where Dive Centers don’t see the true value of what PADI can offer, but your Regional Manager will have a holistic view of your region, and they can put you in touch with the right people. They’ve seen Dive Centers who are in the same position as you; they’re aware of industry trends and they know what works. Without our Regional Manager, we wouldn’t have crossed over to PADI or be using PADI Adventures; both of which have made a world of difference to our business.
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