A new alliance between Jetstar and AirAsia is likely to reduce costs by 5-10%. This saving could bring your Indo-Pacific diving holiday closer.

The alliance is expected to save the air carriers millions as they pool their resources. “The savings could be quite significant. We will pass them on to the consumer,” Mr Westaway said. “It’s early days but if we can reduce our costs by five to 10 per cent, consumers could save close to that amount in airfares.”

Although Mr Westaway has promised to pass the savings on to travellers in the next few months, he also envisages long-term savings from the deal. The alliance will be be looking to invest in mutually owned aircraft, specifically a new generation of narrow-body aircraft.

Jetstar is a Qantas Group airline. “This is the first alliance between two low-cost carriers of this size anywhere in the world,” said Qantas CEO Alan Joyce.

The 2 aircraft currently service Indo-Pacific destinations like Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia as well as flying as far afield as London and Honolulu.

Source: Perth Now.

Does that make your Indo-Pacific diving holiday seem more withing reach? Contact Dive The World to find out more about your Indo-Pacific diving holiday at blog@dive-the-world.com or call us on +66 (0)83 505 7794.

Do you want a scuba diving career that makes a difference for our oceans and marine life, but don’t know where to start?  Apply for a scholarship from Our World Underwater Scholarship Program sponsored by Rolex.

If you are between the ages of 21 and 26 and are a certified Rescue Diver, then you stand the chance of winning a scholarship that will help you turn your diving hobby into a career. Imagine: those divine Australasian dive spots could become your office and mandarinfish could become your next work project!

The purpose of the scholarship is to help create the next wave of marine researchers and dive leaders.  During the year of scholarship, 3 lucky winners will travel extensively, get a lot of diving opportunities and be exposed to a large variety of underwater careers ranging from marine research, movie production, underwater photography, archeology to ecological activism.

The application deadlines for the scholarships are: Australasia – 31 Jan 10, North America and Europe – 31 Dec 09. For more info visit Our World Underwater Scholarship Program.

Think you have a chance of winning, but need to further your PADI certification?  What better venue than at a tropical Australasian scuba diving destination. Contact Dive The World right away on +66 (0)83 505 7794 or email blog@dive-the-world.com.

In a bold new move, Palau’s President, Johnson Toribiong, is establishing a precedent setting shark sanctuary in the Pacific Ocean surrounding the 200 islands that comprise the territory of Palau. The sanctuary will safeguard sharks from commercial fishing within a 600,000 square km radius.

President Toribiong announced this ground breaking news at the UN General Assembly on Friday. He is outspoken against shark-finning and is calling for a world-wide ban on the cruel practice, saying “The need to protect the sharks outweighs the need to enjoy a bowl of soup”.

Palau’s oceans are travelled by at least 130 threatened species of shark who will benefit from the sanctuary. President Toribiong said, “These creatures are being slaughtered and are perhaps at the brink of extinction unless we take positive action to protect them.”

The shark sanctuary will constitute a major attraction for scuba divers travelling in the Indo-Pacific region looking to dive with sharks.  These magnificent creatures including white tips, hammerheads and tiger sharks roam the extensive coral reefs in the area.

Palau has been seeking to establish their waters as a shark sanctuary since Nov ‘01. Discussing sharks President Toribiong says, “Their physical beauty and strength, in my opinion, reflects the health of the oceans; they stand out.”

Sharks are thought to contribute to coral reef health. Matt Rand, director of global shark conservation at the Pew Environment Group commented, “Palau has recognised how important sharks are to healthy marine environments.”

Declaring that Palau “are leading the world in shark conservation.”

President Toribiong further requested a global ban be placed on bottom-trawling, which can devastate coral reef ecosystems. Adding he had planned to “state to the world that Palau will revisit its current position” on whaling.

Although an ever-increasing number of developing countries, including the Maldives, are now taking steps to protect sharks and limit trade in shark fins, Palau is a shining example of the way forward. President Toribiong urges other leaders “to follow suit.”

Source: BBC News

For more information on diving with sharks, contact Dive the World at blog@dive-the-world.com or call us on +66 (0)83 505 7794.

Siamo contenti di annunciarvi il lancio definitivo della versione italiana di Dive The World!!!

Il sito è interamente in italiano e propone una vasta panoramica sulle nostre destinazioni subacquee in giro per il mondo con la descrizione dei punti d’immersione piu’ belli, le barche ed i resort migliori…inoltre come arrivarci, il tipo d’attrezzatura da portare, il clima, che cosa fare oltre alle immersioni, codici di comportamento, salute e tanto, tanto altro ancora.

la Thailandia, terra dei sorrisi, ti affascinerà con la sua cultura e con le sue meravigliose immersioni nello splendido Mare delle Andamane e del Golfo della Tahilandia.

la Malesia, con le meraviglie del Borneo, e’ una terra selvaggia e mitica con le immersioni di fama mondiale di Sipadan, Mabul e Kapalai.

l’Indonesia, un immenso arcipelago, considerata il centro mondiale delle bio-diversita’ marine sapra’ accontentare anche il sub piu’ esigente.

la Birmania, la terra delle pagode, offre itinerari nell’Arcipelago delle Mergui e dei Burma Banks lontano dalle orde dei turisti per una crociera esclusiva.

il Mar Rosso, mare delle meraviglie, ti regalerà immersioni mozzafiato su pareti o su famosissimi relitti , sempre seguiti dalla lunga esperienza di barche ed equipaggi.

Con il nuovo sito abbiamo anche “nuove destinazioni Dive The World”:

le Maldive, paradiso tropicale in terra, sono sinonimo di pace, tranquillità, mari turchesi, ma anche lusso e forti emozioni nel blu.

l’Australia, terra lontana e sognata, vanta la Barriera Corallina piu’ grande del mondo ed un ventaglio di opportunità a terra che non ha eguali.

le Fiji, splendide perle nell’immenso dell’Oceano Pacifico, sono chiamate la capitale mondiale del corallo molle e sono famose per il calore della loro gente.

In conclusione siamo pronti ad organizzarvi delle splendide vacanze che rimarranno impresse nelle vostre menti e nei vostri cuori, scriveteci una e-mail con i vostri desideri e sara’ nostro piacere aiutarvi a realizzarli.

Se sei interessato ad immergerti in una delle nostre meravigliose località, non ti resta che contattare uno dei nostri venditori che parla italiano e che fara’ il possibile per aiutarti. Chiamaci al +66 (0)83 505 7794, o scrivici una email a info@dive-the-world.com

Recently a bargain-bucket on-line diving travel business has appeared to collapse. It seems, from what customers are saying in forums and on Facebook, that in some cases the company has taken their money and not made their bookings. The people who were the faces of the company appear to have gone underground and there seem to be quite a few irate customers left with nothing.

Understandably this raises the question of whether people could see Dive The World in the same light. For the reasons below we can show how we are a very different type of business and very different types of people.

The Nature of Our Business

We strive to be a helpful, useful service to divers planning a holiday. We want to be able to give you information you cannot get elsewhere. We are divers and we want to share our honest and impartial opinions with you to help make sure you really get what you want, so:

• We don’t sell just anywhere
  Some operators aim to sell every single country on earth that has a coastline. We started small, selling where we know best and slowly expanding taking in areas we extensively research and visit. This ensures we only sell places where we can, hand-on-heart, recommend the diving. We have chosen not to sell some destinations because they did not live up to the hype.

• We don’t sell just anyone
  When we visit the places we sell, we stay and dive with many operators. Through a rigorous assessment process we decide who we can recommend in each destination. Factors such as reliability, cleanliness and safety can and have made us reject operators, sometimes those with ‘big’ reputations.

Real Relationships, Real People, Real Representation

Some agents feature loads of operators on their site and in reality they do not even have a working relationship with them. They simply have them on the site to make it look like they have lots of choice but the operators won’t actually take bookings from them.

• We know all our operators and welcome customers verifying with them if we are a reliable and authorised agent of theirs.

In addition to our offices and representatives in Thailand, Malaysia and South Africa, we have a dive centre in Phuket, near the beach. Everyone knows where it is. It is right here. We have been in operation for many years and are a very high profile diving company known throughout the diving community.

• We are a long established and reputable diving company and are not going to do a disappearing act.

Several months ago a liveaboard company in the Maldives suddenly ceased to operate and cancelled trips our customers were booked on. We quickly organized and paid for alternative trips for our customers without guarantee of remuneration. Our customers all enjoyed their holidays on alternative boats. It took several months and the instruction of lawyers in the Maldives for us to be repaid the money we had paid out. Instead of our customers suffering, we shouldered all the risk.

• We take our customers side, we don’t side against you. We want you to be happy with our service and to use us again for diving in another location.

Good Prices, Great Service and Reliability.
Beware the Bargain Bucket.

We always try to make sure we have good deals available to you and we will sell at no more than the operators published rate. However we can often agree with operators special arrangements to sell at cheaper than this because we know that everyone loves a good deal!

So beware of absolute bargain bucket operators who cut every corner just to present the lowest price to you in the hope of getting your business. Just like no frills airlines will take no responsibility for you missing flight connections, the same applies when it comes to this business.

If you pay absolute rock bottom prices, expect absolute rock bottom treatment, particularly if anything should go wrong.

So when you are searching through the Dive The World destinations you can be sure that you are not doing so blindly. There is already an element of quality assurance. Our sales team are always on hand to help you, inform you and guide you to your next dream diving holiday.

If you’re a fan of Google Earth, and it’s hard not to be, then as a diver you might be thrilled at the thought of Google Earth’ing below the sea’s surface. Well, almost.

The new Google Earth 5 Beta brings the ocean deep right to your desktop. Although it is not possible to capture the underwater world via satellite imagery like it is of land, through ocean-floor data called bathymetrics, it is possible to fairly reliably render the lay of the (submerged) land.

The new ocean layer in Google Earth 5 offers you this and a host of complementary content from partners such as National Geographic, the BBC, Cousteau Ocean World and a wealth of others.

Information about ocean expeditions, marine protected areas, endangered ocean species; they are all at the tip of your mouse pointer, indicated by icons as you fly over the planet’s oceans to your favourite dive, surf or holiday destination.

Fancy tracking a pelagic critter? The ocean layer has that too – at the time of this post a whale shark is visible, currently at latitude 9.7377 longitude 100.9932, south off Indonesia.

The ocean layer even includes marine life census data, historical maps, ocean sports and whole section on the state of the ocean, including ocean observations, sea surface temperatures, dead zones and human impacts.

Boot up the PC, load Google Earth 5 and prepare to explore the oceans like you never thought possible.

A General Sales Agent (GSA) can make the world of difference to your business, putting a professional team in place to deal with enquiries, streamlining your company, maximising efficiency and reducing internal administration issues.

If you want to know more then read on….

• Do I need a GSA?
• How can Dive The World help?
• Don’t spend money to make money!
• Why choose Dive The World?
• Take the next step.

How do you know if you need a GSA?

Consider the following questions.

• Do you lack the resources to expand into new markets?
• Are you regularly replacing sales staff?
• Do you want fewer employees?
• Are you constantly training, monitoring and managing sales staff?
• Can your sales staff be more efficient and effective?
• Is your sales process too much effort for too little reward?
• Can you benefit from a professional dive sales team selling your product?
• Do you want more time to focus on your product, guests or yourself?
• Could your website rank higher in search engines?

If you answer ‘Yes’ to a few of these then a GSA could be the answer.

How can Dive The World help?

As your GSA, Dive The World takes on the responsibility of selling your products while simultaneously giving you more time to focus on servicing your clients.

On your behalf, we…

• handle new customer enquiries directly from your website and sell your products;
• address time-consuming customer questions and concerns;
• handle the entire sales process through to payments;
• remit payments to you on a regular and scheduled basis;
• provide monthly GSA performance reports;
• improve performance communicating regularly with you;

and, if agreed…

• report on your website performance;
• perform search engine optimisation (SEO) on your website;
• recommend additional website improvements to maximise enquiries and sales.

You have to spend money to make money, right? Wrong!

As your GSA, Dive The World…

• operate on a no result – no fee basis. Unlike staff, you do not pay us for enquiries we do not convert into sales. We do not charge per enquiry;
• deliver more customers to you with an average 17% enquiry conversions rate;
• save you labour costs – no need to recruit and manage staff to handle emails;
• handle all payments, saving you bank charges, and allowing you use of our range of payment options;
• handle all customer correspondence, allowing you to focus on product service and operations;
• answer your website enquiries promptly within 24 hours;
• tend to your customers in English, German and Italian, allowing you to earn sales from each of these language markets;
• generate more traffic, enquiries and ultimately sales, through our SEO and improvement plan if agreed;
• generate new revenue flows for you from our wide range of alternative products; Only after the point where the customer states that your product is not suitable, will we consider offering any alternative products.

Why should you choose Dive The World to be your GSA?

Dive The World…

• aim to be the No 1 in the online dive travel market;
• have a proven track record in SEO and web development;
• respond rapidly and professionally to email correspondence;
• have a high conversion rate of enquiries;
• consists of a large and dedicated sales enquiry team;
• track and report all enquiries through sophisticated Customer Relationship Management software;
• achieve customer loyalty by carefully selecting operators that provide high quality service across a range of prices;
• maintain loyalty through detailed product knowledge and customer feedback, providing independent ratings and maintaining performance levels;
• are the appointed GSA for Andaman Divers in Thailand;

So if you like the idea of maximising efficiency and reducing administrative hassles…what’s the next step?

Start by answering the following questions and we’ll take it from there:

• How many new customer enquiries per month do you receive through your website?
• What is your current calculated enquiry conversion rate?
• How many unique visitors visit your website each month throughout the year?
• How long does it currently take you to reply to enquiry emails?
• What SEO has your website previously undergone?
• What are the unique selling points of your products?
• What software do you use to track and manage customer enquiries?

Email us at blog@dive-the-world.com, answer the handful of pertinent questions and start maximising your business with Dive The World as your General Sales Agent.