PADI® Members in 85 countries hosted a record 884 events in celebration of the third annual PADI Women’s Dive Day on 15 July 2017. Since the inaugural event in 2015, PADI has seen widespread adoption and support of its Women In Diving initiative – and this year proved no different.

PADI Women’s Dive Day 2017 garnered more than 90 million media impressions worldwide and reached millions of people via social media, increasing awareness and excitement for diving across a wide audience. PADI Members, AmbassaDivers^TM, social influencers and divers all took to social channels to proudly share their Women’s Dive Day experiences. On Instagram alone, posts tagged with #padiwomensdiveday, #womensdiveday and #padiwomen reached nearly 5.2 million people with eight million impressions.

“PADI Women’s Dive Day is a fantastic opportunity to promote scuba diving for women,” says Barbara Baldi, PADI Master Instructor at Decostop in Piacenza, Italy. “This year we had an event involving two PADI Five Star IDCs – Decostop and Area 51 – and it was great to see our boats full of women having social moments and so much fun. Thank you PADI for this amazing event!”

The success of PADI Women’s Dive Day is evident in the number of female PADI certifications issued in the past three years. For many years, all female certifications – including entry level and continuing education – accounted for about 35 percent of global PADI recreational certifications. Since the launch of PADI’s Women in Diving initiative and Women’s Dive Day, PADI witnessed a narrowing of the gender gap and, with this shift, women now make up more than 40 percent of new entry level divers. Having more women divers generally increases the number of families diving, which helps create a stronger and more active dive community.

Each PADI Women’s Dive Day event was one-of-a-kind, tailored to the specific interests of female divers (or soon to be divers) in the community. Events included everything from underwater cleanups and fundraisers for great causes, to shark dives and travel adventures. Some events included female-only dive courses or excursions while others encouraged participation from the whole family. However, all events had common goals: to strengthen bonds within the dive community, get more people actively diving and create more stewards for our oceans.

“On PADI Women’s Dive Day, I was surrounded by female divers, which meant I was simultaneously surrounded by my peers and my heroes,” says Shayna Cohen, PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer at Rainbow Reef Dive Center in Key Largo, Florida, USA. “I giant-strided into an ocean brimming with female buddies, divemasters and instructors, off the stern of a boat run by a female captain and first mate. As I watched an 11-year-old girl follow behind me, I could see the industry changing from its historically male-dominated past. It’s important for the world to know that female divers are great divers: they’re strong, smart, courageous, adventurous and compassionate, and they’re here to make waves.”

Special thanks to all who took part in PADI Women’s Dive Day 2017 to help to grow the dive community by attracting new people to scuba diving and freediving, and motivating existing female divers to get back in the water and continue their dive training. The continued success of this initiative is only possible due to the enthusiasm and participation of PADI Members around the world.

Save the date! Next year’s PADI Women’s Dive Day will be on Saturday, 21 July 2018. For more information, visit www.PADI.com.

Source: www.divenewswire.com