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You Are Not Alone - Help in Selling Travel by Michael and Rachael Connors , Owners, American Dive Zone, MI In 2024, we bought a dive shop in Grand Rapids, MI. Not inherited. Not franchised. Bought it. This is our story.
Y OU ARE NOT ALONE. If you are a new retailer and you have been suffering from information overload when it comes to all the recommendations on dive trip locations, believe us we have been there too. This magazine is filled with helpful articles from industry professionals who
trip?” because we felt we hadn’t met the benchmarks set by others. Looking at the financials, it didn’t seem worth our time or money. Boy, were we wrong. We arrived in Cayman Brac with our three additional divers. We had swag bags of American Dive Zone apparel
have successfully built their travel programs. We all strive for that kind of success, and every journey begins with a step. Here’s how we took our giant stride into the world of dive travel, because we all have to start somewhere.
and printed itineraries for the week. We welcomed them as soon as they stepped onto the resort and guided them through every meal and activity. Our re- lationships with those three divers grew very strong. During morn-
With limited time before the trip and a very small marketing engine, we were overwhelmed. We saw other shops selling out trips with 20+ divers, and the comparison froze us.
We bought our shop in June of 2024 without any trips planned for the following year. The entire 2025 season was a blank slate for us to build the trips we wanted to run. We knew we had to get trips on the books ASAP. Industry rule of thumb is to book two years out so we didn’t have much runway. Leaning heavily on guidance from a dive travel agent, we landed on a trip to Cayman Brac. It was a destination the previous owner hadn’t done, which we believed would add intrigue for our existing customer base. It was also a relatively easy trip for us to plan: flights were manageable,
ing boat dives, since we were a group of five on a 20-person boat, we spent the week diving with another group of ten. Our rides out to the dive site were filled with conversations about favorite dive locations, memories of sea life encounters, and personal stories. After a few dives and time spent around the resort with the other ten divers on our boat, we all connected. They saw our divers, the underwater and boat eti- quette we integrate into our group trips, the way we supported each other, and they wanted to be part of American Dive Zone. In less than a week, we built a community at the resort, and everyone on the boat became an American Dive Zone diver.
dive profiles were OW+ friendly, and most activities took place at the resort. From a logistics standpoint, it felt doable. What we didn’t know was how to sell it. With limited time before the trip and a very small marketing engine, we were overwhelmed. We saw other shops selling out trips with 20+ divers, and the com- parison froze us. Building a travel program from scratch felt daunting, but we pushed forward and booked the trip. We launched it on Facebook, created a one-page flyer, talked to everyone who walked into the store, and hoped for the best.
We walked away from Cayman Brac with ten divers who weren’t from our shop asking to be added to our email list. Of those ten, six booked a trip with us to Little Cayman this year. Cayman Brac had three paid divers; one year later, our Little Cayman trip sold out (with the phone still ringing) and we proudly booked 22 paid divers. If you’re a new dive shop building a travel program and learning how to run trips, our
best advice is simple: book the trip. Do it scared. Do it uncertain. Just do it. Then get the word out social media, conversations with every customer, your website, and flyers at the counter. Any marketing helps (because we know you’re juggling a million things as a new owner). And if only a few people sign up, show those people an amazing time. That
We ended up filling five spots, and two of them were us. With those numbers, a free spot was out of the question. We were essentially paying more than we would profit. At the time, it felt like a huge loss. We felt like we failed. We were even embarrassed when people asked, “Who else is on the
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