Last month in Singapore, at the Asia Dive Expo, Ceningan Divers was named Dive Resort of the Year at the BlueGreen360 Awards. A year earlier, at the same event, the same awards named us Dive Operator of the Year.
This second award carries more weight for us than the first.
A first award can raise the question of timing: a good season, favourable coverage, or chance. A second award, in a different category, indicates that the approach itself is working. That is a different kind of confirmation, and it has given us reason to reflect over the past few weeks.
We opened on August 1, 2015, on Nusa Ceningan, the small island next to Nusa Lembongan off Bali, and we are approaching our fourth anniversary. We are no longer a new business, and this is the aspect most useful to any small business, whether or not it is a dive shop.
What changed between the first award and the second?
Very little that would be visible in a brochure, and that is precisely the point.
Last year was a significant one. We joined Green Fins, the programme supported by UN Environment that assesses dive operators on their environmental practices. We built a 68,000-litre rainwater reservoir, a substantial investment on a small island with limited fresh water. We also placed third in the best dive resorts category at the Dive Travel Awards.
This year, we have mainly continued the same practices: no single-use plastic, weekly beach cleanups, and citizen science with the Marine Megafauna Foundation, in which our divers record sightings that researchers can actually use. None of this is a campaign. It is how the business operates every week, whether or not anyone is observing.
In our assessment, this is what was recognized: not a major new idea, but the continued application of established practices.
Why does consistency outperform a single major effort?
We have observed many small businesses, in Bali and previously in Vancouver, invest in a single major effort: a launch, a rebrand, or a month of daily Facebook posts. The effect then fades. Because the effort was never built into how the business operates, it ends when the initial energy does.
The beach cleanup illustrates this well. A single cleanup is a photo opportunity. A weekly cleanup over several years is a practice, and guests notice. When a guest returns after two years and finds the crew still out every week with the bags, it communicates more than any mission statement on a website.
The no-plastic rule follows the same principle, with greater day-to-day effort.
It is easy to announce and demanding to maintain. Suppliers change their packaging without notice. A new staff member forgets the rule. A guest brings a case of water bottles onto the boat, and the situation must be handled without creating discomfort. Maintaining the rule means managing these small difficulties on an ongoing basis. There is no end point at which the work is complete.
Judges reward this routine work, and, more importantly, so do guests.
Why is staff retention reflected in guest reviews?
Reviews of any dive centre regularly name staff members: the instructor who guided a guest through their first open water dive, the divemaster who found the manta, the boat crew who kept everyone in good spirits between dives. In diving, reviews are primarily about people. The reef itself does not change.
This has a practical implication that many owners overlook. When good staff stay, reviews remain positive and returning guests see familiar faces. When staff change every season, that trust must be rebuilt repeatedly, and the effect eventually appears in the ratings.
This applies equally to a café or a guesthouse. The person who remembers a customer's order is part of the product. To improve reviews over time, invest in the people who generate them. This also matters for search: Google relies heavily on reviews for local SEO and map listings, and a steady flow of honest reviews cannot be simulated.
What is an award worth in your marketing?
The logo belongs on the website. A badge from a credible third party helps a prospective guest on another continent decide to book with a business they have never seen, and that value is real.
An award, however, is a statement about the past. What guests want to know is whether the business is still the same today: recent reviews, recent photos, recent news. An award logo beside a blog that has not been updated in a year sends a contradictory message, and people notice it more quickly than many owners expect.
The badge is therefore effective only when everything around it is current. The full list is available on the Ceningan Divers about us page. What such a list does not show is how much of the result depends on consistently doing the same careful work the following week.
What did we plan before framing the certificate?
High season is approaching. July and August are busy on Lembongan and Ceningan, and mola mola usually begin to appear around Nusa Penida in the cooler months. More divers mean more pressure on the reef, more plastic arriving with guests, and more new staff to train. This is when the no-plastic rule and the briefings face their real test.
Before the team became complacent, we therefore documented the next steps. The list is substantial, as it has always been.
We recommend the same approach to any business that receives an award: acknowledge the achievement, then document the improvements to make next.