EXHIBITION PARTICIPANTS

The total number of exhibitors is 186 companies from 21 countries. This is slightly less than in 2022, but very much for the current historical moment. The exhibition was bright and intense, not just for show – dozens of videos about the exhibition and its performances have already been published on the exhibition's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MOSCOWDIVESHOW



The official presence of tourism ministries in diving-friendly countries (Maldives, Malaysia, Cuba) is an important sign of support for both the exhibition and the dive community. But a fundamentally new phenomenon is the wide representation of domestic regions. The exhibition has never seen such a geographical scale within Russia. The main water clusters have significantly increased both the total area of stands and the total number of exhibitors.

The largest growth was recorded in the Far Eastern region – Sakhalin, Moneron, Primorye, Vladivostok presented both well-known routes and completely new ideas, including travel options in the territories of national parks and nature reserves.

The second place in the rating belongs to dive centers and tour companies of the Barents and White Sea. It is also worth noting the bright newcomers of the exhibition – a unique project of the Yantarny underwater Park from Kaliningrad. Overall —domestic tourism took up a third of the exhibition space reserved for tourism business exhibitors.

In general, the area among the exhibitors was distributed quite traditionally: more than a third of the total square area falls on underwater equipment (36%), about a quarter on training (28%) and tourism (26%). If you put it on the other axis, the diver profile occupied more than two-fifths of the exhibition area (41%), one-fifth went to freediving and spearfishing (20% each), and the rest of the space fell on other water and related activities.

USER'S PROFILE PICTURE

The total flow for 4 days of operation of the Moscow Dive Show approached 20 thousand, actually returning to the pre-quarantine level and recouping last year's losses caused by the sudden introduction of QR input control. The growth compared to 2022 is slightly more than 10%.

There is a noticeable share of non-capital visitors – those who specially came to Gostiny Dvor for the exhibition weekend from St. Petersburg, as well as from other cities and even countries. The exhibition is a national and international event. They know about the exhibition and include it in their calendar in advance.

Divers traditionally predominate among visitors to the exhibition, and in general, submariners of all stripes make up five-sixths of the total flow (82%). The ratio of male and female audiences is very different: the most feminine activity is freediving, and the most masculine is spearfishing. And among those who came to choose a hobby – men and women almost equally, although there are slightly more women.

Users who marked the item " Newbie. "Choose a hobby" this year was 21% - an important growth potential: they are the ones who will become new water and submariners.

We calculated the number of station wagons that registered several hobbies in the questionnaire at once. Almost half of the freedivers (45%) are also divers, and one in three freedivers (30%) is also an underwater hunter, although only 12% of divers are lovers of spearfishing.Yachtsmen and surfers who came to the exhibition are no strangers to underwater activities: two out of three (64%) indicated that they also have underwater hobbies – diving, freediving, hunting or underwater photography.

Saturday is the busiest day of the exhibition: Saturday is the peak time for both family visits and cultural and entertainment programs. Registered repeat visitors make up almost three-quarters (72%), and more than a quarter of visitors (26%) have been going to the exhibition regularly for several years.

WHERE DO WE TRAVEL?

All visitors to the Moscow Dive Show are required to answer the questions of a small questionnaire. Yes, this somewhat complicates the process of access to the exhibition and causes murmurs, but otherwise it is impossible to get such important figures showing changes in the lives of aquatic people.

We present a new rating of countries compiled based on the results of trips made in 2022 by visitors to the Moscow Dive Show.

 

Egypt is still invincible and consistently leads in popularity. Direct flights are no longer restricted by quarantine or aviation security, but the share of Egyptian trips has fallen from 55% to 32% compared to the quarantine year 2021. Other countries, where air travel opened in 2022, have bitten off their part. Turkey and Maldives retained silver and bronze medals in the ranking.

The most important figure showing the overall transport activity of the water community is the proportion between those who left and those who did not leave the country. In 2022, 45% traveled abroad, compared to 51% in 2021.

We also calculated the number of people who left separately by category. Divers (53%) and yachtsmen/surfers (54%) made the most trips abroad, while freedivers (48%) made the least trips abroad, and underwater hunters (29%) made the least trips abroad.

The overall geography of trips has expanded significantly: the top 10 does not cover even two-thirds (63%) of the total variety of dive destinations. Vietnam and Sri Lanka returned to the top 10. Cuba, Indonesia, the Philippines and Cyprus are in the second ten, and the last place is predictably occupied by the United States, which closed the top 10 a year ago.

If during the quarantine year, the popularity of destinations was primarily determined by their technical and sanitary accessibility – then under the new restrictions, flights are again crucial – direct (as to Egypt or the UAE) or with convenient connections in Istanbul and in the same Gulf countries.

In terms of domestic travel, the Black Sea remained in the lead, and the Far East grew up – in 2022, every tenth person managed to visit Sakhalin, Kamchatka, Vladivostok or the Kuril Islands, and there are also those who managed to get even to the Laptev Sea.

PROFESSIONALS AT THE EXHIBITION

Among the guests (not counting the exhibitors) were more than 1,600 water and underwater professionals-primarily owners and managers of dive clubs and dive shops, as well as practicing dive instructors. Of these, 1,438 people registered in advance, filled out a traditional questionnaire and received a Professional badge. And this is a new record, 1161 badges were issued at the last exhibition.

In an unspoken competition among training systems without surprises, the podium is still shared by NDL, PADI and CMAS.

NATURE RESERVES AND NATIONAL PARKS

The organization of recreational tourism in protected areas is a rapidly growing trend, which was given special attention at the Moscow Dive Show 2023. Diving and freediving are ideal from the point of view of minimal pressure on the ecosystem. Underwater tourists allow you to replenish the budgets of nature reserves, which is important for their implementation of new projects.

Expedition cruises on the ship Professor Khromov, which will be held in 2023 under the flags of the magazine Extreme Depth in the Far East and the Kuril Islands, are a vivid example of such coordination with several nature reserves and national parks at once.

Within the framework of round tables, representatives of nature reserves, as well as federal agencies-Roszapovedtsentr and Minvostokrazvitiya-shared their long-term plans and answered urgent questions from participants in the tourism industry. You can also find recordings of these meetings on the exhibition's YouTube channel.

DIVING PROJECT

This is a joint initiative of the Moscow Dive Show and Neptune XXI Century magazine: civilian and military divers, diving doctors, rescuers, and ship-lifting specialists joined forces and showed their arsenal on a special platform. For the second year now, the exhibition has given representatives of various underwater technical departments a rare opportunity to meet face-to-face at a special site to agree on a joint agenda, talk with equipment manufacturers, and find contractors for underwater work.

 

At the stands, you could see and touch equipment for underwater technical work, professional rebreathers, diving helmets, as well as electric-heated ice wetsuits and rescue equipment for high-risk operations. Applications for work in diving and technical companies and organizations were opened: the transition from sports diving to commercial diving is an excellent career opportunity.

Among the new products presented as part of the diving project, we can mention the first domestic regulator Stribog R-21 from DeepWater (while a piece product, but the first serial batch is expected by the summer of 2023) and the tactical amphibious metal detector Alphamarin 5000, manufactured by Metascan.

CULTURAL PROGRAM

In total, more than thirty speakers performed on the main stage and in the conference hall, including the exhibition's ambassadors Ahmed Gabr (absolute world record holder in scuba diving) and Alexey Molchanov (multiple champion and world record holder in freediving), the Ministers of Tourism of the Sakhalin and Kaliningrad regions — Artem Alexandrovich Lazarev and Andrey Viktorovich Ermak, Ivan Gurylev (an underwater hunter and traveler diving in Chukotka since 2004), the legendary yacht captain Nikolai Andreevich Litau (knight of the Order of Courage, leader and captain of three round-the-world expeditions on the yacht Apostol Andrey).

New heroes of the depth have taken over the underwater Oscars. Among the winners: underwater explorer Konstantin Bogdanov and the entire exploration and diving team, freediver-record holder Alexey Molchanov, underwater hunter Ivan Gurylev, young high-altitude record holders Pavel Izotov and Andrey Kashin, paradiver Rinat Chernichenko, rescue diver Andrey Terekhov, underwater photographer Andrey Nosik, ice diver Evgeny Polukhin.

The cultural program included more than thirty hours of videos about diving, freediving, spearfishing, paradiving and parafridiving, without taking into account repeated screenings. Special attention was paid to children: marine biologist Konstantin Neverov traditionally brought samples of underwater microfauna to the exhibition, which actively ate each other in front of the public, and the whole process was broadcast on a big screen to the delight of the children's audience.Here, on the island of microscopes, educational lectures and quizzes were held daily. Next door, on knizhny island, young visitors to the exhibition chose marine-themed books from well-known Moscow publishing houses.

More than twenty special seminars and thematic master classes were held in the conference hall, including those on underwater photography.

More than a hundred photographs were shown at the underwater photography exhibition.

WILD GAME OR THE DELICIOUS SIDE OF THE SHOW

The Delicatessen Fair presents the tastes and smells of a real expedition to wild, uncharted places. What a journey without gastronomic discoveries! Oysters and stuffed snails, cold and hot smoked fish, caviar, hunting game, homemade jam made from various berries and not only berries, several types of fragrant honey, handmade mushrooms and pickles. This culinary teleport instantly transports the guest to protected areas.

SEE YOU IN A YEAR!

The dates of the ninth Moscow Dive Show 2024 have already been set: from February 8 to 11, from Thursday to Sunday. The place is the same: Gostiny Dvor, almost 10 thousand square meters of usable area. Preparations have already started. By May, the layout is updated, and from this moment stands that are not confirmed by deposits are opened for free booking.

It is important to remind you that the Moscow Dive Show is the only water exhibition on the planet that has never been canceled either during quarantine or after, and was fully held offline in 2020-2023.

You can and should book stands at the Moscow Dive Show 2024 by email info@diveshow.ru - read current current exhibition news on the website diveshow.ru