Padi vs AIDA instructor course ROI

[jago25_98]

Kind of an ugly question... who teaches for the sake of money... anyway...

If you're choosing an instructors qualification... which gives best return on investment from a business point of view.

PADI - largest market share of diving in general; 5x more than SSI. But... could bring customers due to brand familiarity from scuba
AIDA - Most familiar within our community. Anybody who's done the slightest research will recognise AIDA. More flexible to work with.

AIDA seems best bet. PADI increases costs and reduces flexibility... with no business help AFAIK. SSI could be a compromise but it's market share is ~5x less than PADI in 2014: http://www.divebuddy.com/blog/11985/2014-market-share-scuba-certification-agencies-padi-ssi-naui/

Of course probably the thing to do is get both.

 

[karaunscripted]

It's going to depend where you're working and how you market it.

As a Scuba Instructor who does freediving as a passion, I work in PADI, and PADI shops want PADI Instructors. I'm currently AIDA, but can become a PADI Freediving instructor with an easy crossover so I can offer it to students at PADI Scuba shops I work at.

However, if you're working in a purely freediving shop, then there's no real reason to get PADI for the name or marketing benefit. The people that go to PADI because of the name recognition from SCUBA are probably going to go to PADI scuba shops. If they don't offer freediving, that's when they'll look elsewhere.