Our most effective marketing initiative this year is a water tank.
At Ceningan Divers, we are building a rainwater reservoir with a capacity of 68,000 litres. We operate without single-use plastic, and the weekly beach cleanups continue. None of this is done for marketing purposes. A dive business on a small island uses a great deal of fresh water and produces a great deal of waste, and that is the business's responsibility whether or not it acknowledges it.
This work is also the kind of thing people tell stories about. Our long experience in marketing increasingly confirms that this is how marketing should work.
Why build a rainwater reservoir on a small island?
A dive operation uses fresh water throughout the day: rinse tanks for equipment, rinsing for cameras, and showers after each dive. On a small island such as Nusa Ceningan, fresh water cannot be taken for granted. It comes from a limited source, it has a cost, and it is shared with everyone who lives here.
Bali receives heavy rain for part of the year. Capturing it instead of letting it run off into the sea is one of the oldest solutions there is. We are therefore building a reservoir large enough to make a difference. At 68,000 litres, this is not a rain barrel; it is a substantial piece of infrastructure that requires significant investment and work.
We are not yet publishing how much water it will save per month. We do not yet have figures we can stand behind, and estimating them would contradict the purpose of this article. We will be able to report on it after a full wet season.
How does a dive operation eliminate single-use plastic?
The principle is simple, but implementation is demanding.
Water bottles are the most visible part. Refill stations address them, and most guests readily carry their own bottle once they have a place to fill it. The more difficult part is everything else: snack packaging, the packaging suppliers use for deliveries, straws, bags, and small bottles of various products. New items in plastic packaging regularly appear even after the main sources have been addressed.
The work involves negotiating with suppliers, changing purchasing habits, and declining some convenient products. This is operational work. It is not visible or glamorous, but it is the only version that has real value.
Then there is the beach. Weekly cleanups mean that staff and guests see, every week, what the ocean brings back. Some weeks the results are discouraging. This regular contact maintains a level of accountability that no written policy can achieve.
Since January, we have also been members of Green Fins, which means an external assessor will review how we actually operate, including waste management. This also helps: an upcoming checklist makes it harder to let standards slip.
Why do operations make better marketing than slogans?
The reason is straightforward. People do not remember mission statements. They remember what they saw and what they did: a refill station beside the tanks, a large reservoir that is hard to miss, a morning spent collecting waste on the beach with the crew. These are the experiences that appear in guests' photos and in the stories they tell at home, without anyone asking them to.
Several factors explain why this approach works.
Why do figures make a claim concrete?
"We care about water" says nothing. "We are building a 68,000-litre rainwater reservoir" describes something that exists. People can picture it, and they could come and see it. A real figure, used honestly, is more convincing than any adjective. It also requires rigour, because a figure can be verified.
Why do guests notice it without being told?
When a guest fills a bottle at a refill station instead of being handed plastic, they have experienced your values directly. They do not need to read about them. Writing instructors consistently teach "show, don't tell," yet very few business websites apply it.
How do others tell the story for you?
From a marketing perspective, this is the most significant benefit. When there is something real to point to, other people write about you: guests on review sites, bloggers, and the dive industry itself, which is paying more attention to conservation than it used to. PADI's blog for dive professionals is one place where operator stories like this are shared. This kind of coverage only happens when there is substance behind it. No one writes a feature about a slogan.
Why should operations come before the story?
The order matters. If a business markets an environmental story first and improves its operations later, or never, someone will notice: a guest, a journalist, a competitor, or a dissatisfied reviewer. Once greenwashing is exposed, the damage to a reputation lasts far longer than any campaign.
When operations are improved first, the marketing becomes considerably easier. You describe what you did, you show it, you share the figures you actually have, and you let guests see it for themselves.
We have observed many tourism businesses in the area take the reverse approach. The website and the brochure both promote an eco-friendly image, yet on arrival the drinks are served in plastic cups with plastic straws. Guests notice, and some of them write about it.
What can any small business apply from this?
Most businesses will not build a reservoir, but the principle applies equally to a café, a guesthouse, a farm stand or a garage. The question is what you actually do differently: local suppliers you genuinely use, waste you have genuinely reduced, how you genuinely treat your staff. Choose what is true and what a customer could verify for themselves, and present it on your website with specific details such as sizes, dates and partner names.
If identifying your real story proves difficult, it is usually a marketing strategy question rather than a copywriting one. In many cases, the story already exists but is hidden beneath generic wording.
If there is no such story yet, we recommend improving an aspect of your operations first, and then communicating about it.