The Ambassador Quest

So, everyone keeps asking… what is this Ambassadorship thing you have in divescover.com?

Let’s start from the beginning. How many crappy dive centers are out there? Unfortunately, more than a few. But of course there are still some really good places, not only to learn diving, but to meet new people, learn more and enjoy underwater. How can we know which dive centers are good , and which are not?

We can’t. There is no real trusted review or quality award that can ensure you the proper quality requirements for a dive center. And we are not talking about how good the dives are (It wouldn’t be fair to compare a dive center in Russia with dive spots in the Similan islands, right?).

What we do in Divescover.com is sending our Ambassadors to work and review the dive centers interested, following a same objective criteria in a most equanimous way. . All our ambassadors are either dive professionals, guides, instructors, or really experienced divers (at least > 500 dives). All of them have experience working in dive centers and know how the market works, and all of them are extremmely passionate about diving.

When we send an Ambassador, we fill out a form in a numeric way. There are no personal comments, or subjective ideas. Not “I like or I dislike this”. It’s a mathematical and universal way about quality, friendlyness, safety, materials, etc. The review tries to analize dive centers under the same criteria, independently of their location, wherther they are in the UK, the Great Barrier Reef, or a big and luxury resort in Maldives. Is not a matter of the dive sites, or the price. It’s about the Quality!

These are the items we evaluate:

• Staff: Professionality, friendlyness, knowledge, standards following practises, etc.
• Gear: Rental gear availability, quality, state and relative price
• Facilities: How the dive center is, if it has showers, changing rooms, places for sitting and chatting, etc.
• Dive Sites: Is not about how good the dive sites are, but how they manage them. If they go to suitable places for beginners, or if they go to places a bit more far away despite the petrol expense…
• Customer Service: Not much to say here
• Information available: Diving is not only about being underwater, but the pre and post dive. A good briefing and debriefing, books, etc.
• Teaching: We evaluate dive centers, therefore there is some entry level teaching, and advanced teaching. We do not evaluate specific standards (such PADI or SSI), but the quality of the teaching, and safety.
• Prices: Not the absolute price (It would be ridiculous to compare the Open Water course in UK to one in Thailand). We compare the relative price in the area and the complimentary services, as well as hidden prices et all.

The ambassador review is final, no matter what the result is, and you can download it whenever you find a result and this icon:  in a dive center page.

In the listing, you can differenciate reviewed dive centers because they have the result:

When a dive center gets 75 points over 100 or more, we can say that Divescover.com recommends the dive center, and you can be sure that the quality and the value price is correct. It means, it’s a good dive center to dive with

If you want more information about ambassadors and our model, go to our about divescover page. Or check out our divescover ambassadors. And yes, we do hire ambassadors!