Bali officially reopened to international tourists in mid-October, and the announcement was widely reported. One fact received much less attention: the guests have not come. Based on available information, international arrivals are close to zero. Quarantine rules are strict, the list of permitted countries is short, and the airlines have not resumed flights under these conditions.
For dive operators on the small islands off Bali, this has therefore been another year of waiting: boats on their moorings, tanks empty, rent still due.
The reef, meanwhile, is still there and continues its natural cycle, whether or not anyone is diving it.
What does Green Fins require of a dive centre?
Green Fins is an environmental standard for dive and snorkel operators. It was established in 2004 by the UN Environment Programme and The Reef-World Foundation, and it is now applied in many countries. Members follow a code of conduct: no anchoring on the reef, no touching or feeding marine life, thorough briefings, proper handling of waste and chemicals, and teaching guests how to behave underwater, which is more demanding than it sounds with a boat full of enthusiastic divers.
Members are assessed, usually every year. The score measures environmental impact: the lower it is, the better the result. The Green Fins website explains how the standard works and lists members by country.
Ceningan Divers, the dive resort we co-founded on Nusa Ceningan, joined Green Fins in 2018. By then, we were already operating without single-use plastic, organizing a beach cleanup every week, and that same year we built a 68,000-litre rainwater reservoir. The standard matched our existing practices while giving us an outside perspective, which is essential: it is easy to believe you are doing well when you are the only one checking.
Why are standards tested when money is short?
It is easy to follow green practices when business is good. The business has the staff for a longer briefing and can afford reef-safe products, refill stations and the hour spent on a beach cleanup instead of a paying dive.
When revenue stops, each of these measures begins to seem optional.
This temptation is understandable. When a business is trying to determine whether it can keep paying its staff, returning to plastic water bottles because they are cheaper is not an unreasonable idea. The same applies to postponing the annual assessment or boat maintenance.
This is why the pandemic represents a genuine test for eco-certifications across all of tourism, not only diving. Any business can uphold a standard in a good season. Upholding it for nearly two years with almost no revenue reveals whether it was a value or a marketing claim.
It should be noted that we spent the pandemic in Montreal, far from the island. This post therefore does not describe reef activities we did not witness. It presents instead the practices known to be effective, along with recommendations applicable to any small operator in the same situation.
How can a business maintain its culture without guests?
Through small routines. A culture is not a policy document: it is what people do on an ordinary Tuesday when no one is watching.
The advantage of environmental habits in a dive business is that many of them do not require guests. A beach cleanup does not, nor does proper waste sorting, checking moorings or collecting data for a citizen science project. Ceningan Divers conducts citizen science with the Marine Megafauna Foundation. This type of work keeps a team connected to the purpose of its profession, even when the activity itself has stopped.
The web also contributes. In April of last year, just as everything was shutting down, Ceningan Divers launched an online Education Centre offering free conservation workshops, Project AWARE courses and PADI eLearning. It allowed people who could not travel to stay close to the ocean, and to the dive centre, from home. It was one of the most sensible initiatives a small operator could undertake that spring: inexpensive, it maintained the relationship with people who will want to return.
Recommendations for any small eco-tourism business
- Choose the two or three environmental routines that define you and protect them, whatever the circumstances. Give up secondary measures if necessary, but not those.
- Keep communicating. Short, transparent updates on what you are still doing have value for past guests waiting to return.
- Stay in contact with your certification body. It generally knows what is realistic in difficult times, and it would rather hear from you than lose you.
Why document everything before the restart?
In our analysis, when tourism returns to Bali, the recovery will be fast. Perhaps not this winter, but once flights resume and quarantine is lifted, the pent-up demand from divers who have been confined at home for two years will be considerable.
The operators who handle this recovery well will be those making use of the current quiet period: complete records, updated procedures, trained staff and a clear vision of how they want to operate when the boats are full again. Those who wait will have to act under pressure, and in those conditions environmental practices are often the first to be neglected.
This principle extends well beyond diving. A slow period is the time to record how tasks are done: checklists, supplier contacts, environmental procedures, what worked last season and what did not. When business resumes, no one has time to write anything down.
For a small business in a slow period, it is also the right time to develop a plan for the next few years, while there is room to think.
Standards that withstand a year without guests emerge stronger. They stop being seen as a brochure element and become an expression of the business's identity, which returning guests will notice.