PADI Digital support during COVID – 19
The coronavirus situation is something that we have never seen before, and it is effecting dive businesses and freelance dive instructors around the world. PADI offers a few ideas to keep your business going during these times.
Beginning immediately and through 30 April 2020, PADI has authorized instructors to present course videos and lesson guide materials, online to their students. This does not replace the requirement that students need to own a personal set of course materials and it does not replace any practical sessions or dives from PADI courses – but you can do much of what you normally would when students come to your classroom. You can lead knowledge review for any course online. For example, during a PADI Open Water, Advanced Open Water or Rescue Diver course, go over missed knowledge review questions. You can walk through the dive center and show what you’re talking about – pieces of equipment, how to care for a wetsuit, etc.
You can even teach a few PADI courses that don’t require dives, start to finish.
Project AWARE
Equipment Specialist
Enriched Air Diver
Zoom
A great digital tool for presenting your courses online is Zoom. For those of you that are new to Zoom, PADI has created a handy how-to guide to get you up and running. The guide can be downloaded from the Member Toolkit. From here you can also download PADI’s selection of 7 fun new dive themed background images to use for your next virtual meeting, event or social get together.
Start Today with Digital Learning
Off course, many PADI courses can already be started online through PADI eLearning® This will allow your customers to begin their dive training now, anywhere they are located with wifi. Students that were looking forward to starting their course in your dive center and had to postpone their plans du to COVID -19, will be very interested in this option. For you, it is a good option to make sure that you are ‘up and running’ as soon as the corona problems are over.
To support this concept, PADI is offering unprecedented discounts on PADI eLearning for PADI Members and divers, through 30 April 2020.
Be Proactive with Your Social Media – Now!
When the diving business is slow, you have less photos and videos to share. You may be tempted to take a step back from social media for a while. You should do excactly the opposite and keep scuba diving in people’s minds. Again, this will help to get your business ‘up and running’ as soon as the corona problems are over.
We are all in this together so diving businesses that are able to remain open should share photos of divers in real time, and encourage divers do the same. By posting photos to social media, dive businesses and divers can help offset negative media and keep people excited about diving.
PADI encourages other dive centers around the world to take a similar approach. The more photos and videos we can get out there, the more hope we all have in surviving this crisis. We need to work together.”
There is no better time than now to be active on social media. The PADI Marketing Team has developed social media strategies specifically for this situation, which you may find helpful:
Instagram Strategies
Facebook Strategies
Information in this post is summarized from PADI Pro’s Blog.