Found this text that I wrote about liveaboards for a previous website / dive company that is no longer around, brought back memories and also made me look at how the liveaboard industry has changed now, its much more competitive with profit margins being squeezed to offer divers ever cheaper deals. The text below shows that only 3 liveaboards choices were being offered, now its much more important for dive companies that dont run their own liveaboards to offer as much choice as possible, for all budgets and requirements.
Currently we work with three different operators: The Junk, the Mermaid Liveabord fleet and with South Siam Liveaboards. The Junk is a luxury real Chinese wooden sailship, modernized and rebuilt to be a modern and comfortable Liveaboard with the flair and style of a “real ship”. The Mermaid Fleet are Modern luxurious highly-equipped liveaboards with everything on board a divers heart desires. South Siam Divers offer highest flexibility (departure every day, you can stay from 1 day up to eight days) and very good value for money. A professional crew takes care of you, the cabins are nice and cosy and the food on boards is great. The three operations cater for all tastes and budgets, ask us for our advice and we will be glad to tell you in more detail about the three boats / crews and their itinaries. All these Liveaboards are used by us regularly and all three come highly recommended.
You can see how the market has changed by looking at a typical Phuket in Thailand dive company offering Phuket / Similans Liveaboards it has 4 different classes and a choice of 25 different boats offering divers every possible choice and variety of liveaboard boat.