Our aim is to provide a simple, effective and functional interface between divers and dive resorts. In addition to the advantages inherent in being able to book a dive vacation online using a secure credit card transaction to confirm reservations and rates, ScubaGlobe Privilege Club members get to enjoy a  minimum 10% discount on posted online rates, plus further benefits once they arrive at participating resorts and dive centers.

The ScubaGlobe Privilege Club will be officially launched at ADEX 2006 in Singapore from April 21 to 23. By then, we expect to have ironed out the bugs and to have around 15 dive resorts and liveaboards in the Asia Pacific region participating in a trial program online. We anticipate many more resorts and dive centers will want to sign up for the program as it satisfies all the requirements and wishes that dive operators have been telling us about for years now.

I won't give too many of the details away here, you'll have to drop by our booth at ADEX (113) or check the website (www.scubaglobe.com) on April 21 when we plan to "go live" to find out more details.

Talking about the website, in conjunction with the ScubaGlobe Privilege Club launch, we are completely revamping the site, adding thousands more pages, listings and information to our already burgeoning content. We aim to be the most visited and useful scuba diving site on the planet within the next six months. We are called ScubaGlobe, after all! Check the site often, amazing things are about to happen!

Meanwhile, we are seeing a seachange in the regional dive publishing industry. Dive operators are, for a variety of reasons, spending less on print advertising,  and so we need to make some changes to our strategy to accommodate this fact.

At ScubaGlobe , we actually print and distribute what we say we do (and it costs a small fortune to print AND distribute 7,000 copies of each issue around the world!). Our ad rates are as low as they can be and still allow us to honour our commitments to our advertisers, our contributors and our readers. Consequently, we have decided to cut back on the number of issues we are publishing every year to provide an even better publication that serves the needs of the industry even more effectively and provides even greater value to advertisers.

The good news is that we will be producing larger and better issues of ScubaGlobe Asia Pacific, the region's favorite dive magazine, a minimum of twice a year. As soon as things pick up, we will start publishing more issues. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our loyal advertisers for their continued support, and urge readers to seriously consider using their services next time they plan a dive trip.

See you at ADEX! 

H