Solomons dive business up for global award

SOLOMON ISLANDS – A small dive operation in the Solomon Islands has been short-listed for the 2016 Luxury Travel Guide Global Awards.

Dive Munda is situated in the country’s Western Province and is home to world class reef, wreck and wall diving.

It was initially nominated by guests and vetted by the Luxury Travel Guide team based on service excellence, local knowledge, online visibility, marketing and branding, employee satisfaction and cultural understanding and diversity.

Owner-operator Belinda Botha said the results are to be announced next month.

“We really focus on personalised, customised service therefore any guest that comes through our door, coming to dive with us or snorkel with us, or just taken an excursion with us, is really important to us.

“We’re a small operator and we believe what differentiates us from the next and the next is that personalised, customised service, really listening to what our guests want, what they need and then trying our best to

accommodate and giving them a great fun experience at the same time.

“Our knowledge of the local environment, the local culture, Munda specifically, the Solomon Islands, we’re really passionate about this country and we really feel that we have a fantastic product here and we really want to market and promote that.

Asked how good the diving is in the Solomons, Botha replied: “I don’t think good is the right word. It’s absolutely phenomenal. I have dived personally in many, many places and I’ve lived in many places around the world and personally I think the diving here is the best in the world for a couple of reasons.

“Number one – phenomenal diversity. We have the opportunity to see from the small macro stuff, small little critters, right up to large, big schools of pelagics and we’ve got the added benefit of having a fantastic rich history of World War Two relics, artefacts and then of course our wrecks which entail the shipwrecks as well as planes, aeroplanes.

What would winning the award mean to the operation?

“Well, we’ll be thrilled because that sort of publicity and marketing is hard to come by, so we’ll be very very happy first of all.

“But secondly I think it just reiterates – and I think this is the message that I’m really so excited about – that it doesn’t matter if you’re a smaller operator.

“It says luxury, not that we don’t offer luxurious service, but we’re not perse a luxury destination.

“And I think it means to us people notice that if you really truly are focused on guest services, people notice that you do make a difference.

“We really like to promote sustainable development. I think from our perspective of protecting the oceans, it’s very important and I think people notice that even though we’re a small operator.

“So just reiterating that and also for my staff here – I’m the only expat here, all of my people working for me are from Munda – I think it would mean a phenomenal amount to them as well, knowing that somebody’s noticed the hard work and the effort and the passion that they have for this business.

- RNZI