Diving Participation Rebounds Post-COVID

The USA is the world's largest scuba diving market, and scuba participation in 2022 had almost recovered to pre-COVID levels - but statisticians have noted a shift among those doing the diving.

The number of people who went diving last year was similar to that in 2019 before the pandemic; however, those involved were increasingly casual participants and not dedicated divers, whose numbers continued to drop sharply. Casual divers are defined as those doing fewer than eight dives a year, core divers as those doing more.

Some 2.7 million Americans, less than one percent of the U.S. population, scuba'd at least once in 2022, a 7.3 percent increase from the previous year. Casual divers' participation rose 12.1 percent, while core divers dropped 5.1 percent.

"Scuba diving is increasingly a casual activity done during a vacation that includes many other activities," says Darcy Kieran, founder of the Business of Diving Institute.

"Baby boomers were 'all in' and went to dive resorts offering nothing but scuba diving." Still, for the younger generations, scuba diving is just one thing they do in-between other activities. This trend, he says, has adversely affected diving-equipment sales, especially less travel-friendly items such as BCs and regulators.

However, Kieran says that the dive industry's business model had been designed for the now-dwindling generation of baby boomers ages 58-77 and had failed to adapt sufficiently to market developments. (divernet)

The data comes from the 2023 Sports & Industry Association's Topline Participation Report, as interpreted by the Business of Diving Institute (BODI), which publishes Scubanomics to share dive-industry analysis.