In the main story, Undercurrent subscriber Jim
Willoughby compares the costs of booking group trips
to various locations. He doesn't do it for a living, he just
gets a group of his diver friends together and handles
the bookings, negotiating discounts with dive resorts
and liveaboards.
"Joe Diver can negotiate," he says. "It depends
on the size of your group, and on the flexibility of the
resort. But if I am bringing 10 divers, I often either pay
for just eight of them, or negotiate a 20 percent discount.
What I save, I spread among the group."
Subscriber Guy Charlebois (Laval, Quebec) is
another non-travel-professional who regularly negotiates
dive group trip discounts. While his wife is a travel
agent and handles the flights and hotels, Charlebois
researches dive operators and asks what they can
do for him. When his group of 12 divers wanted to
go to Cozumel last December, he e-mailed four dive
operators and asked what they could offer. He chose
Dressel Divers as it offered a 20 percent discount off
its "Gorilla" package (eight reef dives, one night dive
and two cenote dives) if he paid in advance. "For other
trips, I usually get 10 to 20 percent off the regular price
if I have a group of 10 or more."
Ann Louise Tuke of the dive travel agency
Caradonna Adventures says some resorts offer free
spots for groups with as a few as five or six paying divers.
While some resorts do require a group to be formally
organized through a travel agent or dive shop, there
are plenty, especially smaller ones, that offer reduced rates to personally organized groups. Tuke says it's
easier to get discounts when it's not high season. "And
it doesn't hurt to call a travel agency and ask for help in
getting discounts. Caradonna tells divers where to go for
discounts, even if it won't get a booking commission. "If
someone calls us asking, "'How many people do I need
to get a free space,' we have that information and pass it
on to groups, whether it's a formal group or a bunch of
friends," Tuke says.
Willoughby says the Philippines seems to be most
amenable to giving a package deal. Indonesia hasn't
been as flexible. The Caribbean is more flexible, but he
says their standard rates can be much more expensive.
"Like at Anthony's Key in Roatan, the rate is considerably
more than a comparable package almost anywhere
else, so negotiating doesn't bring it down to an
attractive price."
To get the best deal, Willoughby recommends
researching and booking early. "I start a year out. I'll
research a liveaboard or resort's rack rates online, and
then I reach out with questions like 'I want to bring
some friends, do you offer a group rate? What kind of
arrangements should we make?' They get back with an
offer and generally it's pretty good. If I counter-offer,
sometimes they come back with a different program, or
sometimes they say 'No thanks.'" Willoughby is proud
of the "killer deal" he got when booking a Raja Ampat
liveaboard for 2016. "They gave me this current year's
rate, plus a discount to that, so a 12-day, all-inclusive
trip that would cost $4,600 per person is only costing my
group $3,100 each."