Recreational diving services — Requirements for recreational diving providers
Euro Veritas, UK (www.euroveritas.com) accredited from BAR-UK provides Certification services for ISO 24803:2017 vide Procedure No. EVL/RDS-MS/C-A/2682/C-1.
Euro Veritas, accredited from BAR-UK has started the scheme of auditing and certification towards ISO 24803:2017- for organizations providing recreational activities, such as diving, for which training and experience are essential for the participants to be able to carry out the activity safely.
Although recreational diving is potentially hazardous, the risks to the participants and to the natural and cultural resources of the dive sites can easily be reduced to acceptable levels by the adoption of appropriate precautions. Additionally, impacts to the marine environment, particularly fragile marine ecosystems such as coral reefs, can be reduced through proper education and training of scuba instructors, dive leaders and divers.
A service provider can offer diver training and education, guided dives and rental of diving equipment, snorkelling excursions, and courses leading to one or more of the diver or instructor qualifications specified in the relevant ISO standards. This document specifies requirements for each of these services separately. Thus, although a client might be provided with two services at the same time (for example, diver training and rental of diving equipment), the client is considered to be in receipt of two distinct services. Examples of service providers are a land-based dive centre, a boat-based operation, a dive club, an individual instructor, a watersport centre or an operator offering snorkelling
excursions.
Service providers can often supply compressed breathing gases. This service is not covered in this document as it is usually covered by national legislation and/or other standards. This document for service providers has a key role in the series of standards for recreational diving services as it specifies requirements that are common to the provision of training and qualification of divers and instructors, as specified in the other standards in the series.
ISO 24803:2017 specifies requirements for service providers in the field of recreational scuba diving and snorkelling excursions.
It specifies the following areas of service provision:
- introductory diving activities;
- snorkelling excursions;
- provision of training and education;
- organized and guided diving for qualified divers;
- rental of diving and snorkelling equipment.
Service providers can offer one or more of these services. ISO 24803:2017 specifies the nature and quality of the services to the client. ISO 24803:2017 does not apply to freediving (also called "apnea diving").
Euro Veritas, UK (www.euroveritas.com) accredited from BAR-UK provides Certification services for ISO 24803:2017 vide Procedure No. EVL/RDS-MS/C-A/2682/C-1.
Service providers may offer one or more of these services. ISO 24803:2017 specifies the nature and quality of the services to the client and applies only to contractual provision of those services.
Related Standards:
Reducing diving-related accidents
ISO standards help the business to comply with regulations, in conjunction with third-party certification by an accredited certification body, and they also help demonstrate to potential customers and authorities that they are providing quality services. The lack of any specific national regulations in the diving instructor sector, has led many countries to adopt the ISO series of standards on recreational diving as being the industry requirement. Egypt, that made the ISO standards a legal requirement for its dive centres, registered a 24 % decrease in the number of diving-related accidents over a two year period.
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