- DEMA Helps Members Target Current Customers and Local Diving Opportunities: Experience the Adventure of the Hunt NOW -

Professional Dive Centers are always looking for fun local diving events to keep their current customers engaged. Local and regional diving activities are as important as dive travel to promote education, equipment purchases and fun. Today the Diving Equipment & Marketing Association (DEMA) is proud to announce the release of a new in-water game called “DiveCaching,” designed to keep divers active locally while promoting more diving, more retail dive business and keeping customers involved!

“We’re extremely excited to be introducing this new real-life game to the diving and snorkeling community,” commented Tom Ingram, Executive Director of DEMA. “It’s a simple in-water activity that can be conducted almost anywhere, regardless of visibility or dive conditions. There are so many rewards to be gained from participating in DiveCaching; exploring new dive sites, visiting favorite locations with a new eye for adventure, and simply thriving on the fun and excitement of discovering ‘treasure’ underwater. DiveCaching gives certified divers a great reason to dive locally, use and update their equipment, brush up on previously learned skills such as navigation and search, and just have a great time with family and friends. Divers can also search for caches when traveling to dive anywhere in the world, and there’s virtually no limit to the games and activities in which retailers, dive professionals, and divers can incorporate DiveCaching. DiveCaching is truly ‘Looking for Fun!’ ”

DiveCaching is an underwater variation of “Geocaching,” a decade-old game that uses a GPS device and simple search skills to locate hidden land-based caches. Here’s how it works:
Divers hide a “treasure” or “cache” underwater and post the GPS coordinates and compass directions on www.geocaching.com, the official global GPS cache hunt website
Other divers search www.geocaching.com for divecache listings near their dive site and actually dive to locate the cache
Once the cache is found, divers log their cache visit using the on-site visitor’s log. The finder may also choose to photograph the cache, deposit an additional treasure in the container or simply return it to its original location
After returning to the surface, the finders log their visit on www.geocaching.com, sharing their adventure with other divers around the world

There are more than 5 million geocachers worldwide and more than 1.3 million active, mostly land-based, geocaches. Divers can join www.geocaching.com with a free basic membership, and log the caches they hide for others to find as well as any they find while searching.

Why DiveCaching? Not only is it fun but it also gives divers motivation to dive wherever there are submerged caches located in dive environments for which they are trained and equipped. Caches can be hidden in almost any underwater environment, and the visibility, temperature and other diving conditions are part of the challenge of hiding and finding a cache. It also creates the perfect family outing when combined with land-based geocaching or social activities and allows non-divers to join in the fun!

DEMA member retailers will receive DiveCaching information and tools over the next few weeks to get their customers involved and help them hide their own caches. In the meantime, visit www.facebook.com/DiveCaching to view and share the introductory video now! DEMA will “officially” launch DiveCaching to the entire diving community beginning on May 17th at which time online ads promoting DiveCaching to consumers will begin to appear. Stay tuned for more information on how you can get your customers involved in this exciting activity!

For more information about DiveCaching, including finding and hiding a cache, visit www.DiveCaching.org and don’t forget to join us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated on the latest DiveCaching details, updates and events!

DEMA, the Diving Equipment & Marketing Association, is an international organization dedicated to the promotion and growth of the recreational scuba diving and snorkeling industry. With more than 1,400 business members, this non-profit, global organization promotes scuba diving through initiatives, consumer awareness programs and media campaigns, including the Be a Diver and DiveCaching campaigns, and produces the annual DEMA Show, a trade event open only to companies doing business in the scuba diving, action water sports and adventure/dive travel industries. DEMA Show 2011 will take place November 2-5, 2011 in Orlando, FL. For more information on DEMA Show visit www.demashow.com, join us on Facebook or follow us at www.Twitter.com/DEMA_Show. For more information on DEMA, visit www.dema.org. For more information on the Be A Diver and DiveCaching campaigns visit www.BeADiver.com, join us at www.Facebook.com/BeADiver or www.Facebook.com/DiveCaching or follow us at www.Twitter.com/BeADiver or www.Twitter.com/DiveCaching.