Louisa Fisher and India Tyndall – two self-confessed’ scuba diving obsessives’ – tell DIVE how they came to start their dream business, Reefscape Travel
Reefscape Travel is a scuba diving tour operator founded by Louisa Fisher and India Tyndall, whose aim is to provide tailor-made luxury diving holidays with a personal touch that goes above and beyond the standard duty of care to customers.
Louisa is a marine biologist who learned to dive at the age of 11 after growing up ‘obsessed with tidal pools of the coast of the UK’; India learned to dive at the age of 14 in the Maldives before going on to work as a marine conservationist in Madagascar.
They met in 2016 as colleagues at an established dive travel agency, but had a shared dream to set up their own independent operation. When the pandemic hit, the two women saw a perfect opportunity to branch out and start their own business.
‘I’d always wanted to start a business and it felt like the right time,’ says India. ‘We didn’t want diving to feel like an afterthought in a luxury holiday but, rather, the core reason for travelling.
‘We wanted to focus on selecting a sustainable portfolio of great properties in unique locations,’ she added, ‘and make sure we offered the highest possible levels of service.’
With a shared total of 37 years of diving experience between them, and 15 years working in the world of luxury dive travel, India and Louisa have plenty to bring to the table, and it is clear from the way that they speak that they are genuinely dedicated to making sure their customers have the best experience possible.
‘Our big selling point is building a rapport with our clients,’ says Louisa. ‘They know that we’ve dived in 35 countries around the world. It’s not just about being a tour operator, it’s about living, breathing, everything in diving.’
Their dedication to that personal, objective service is clearly evidenced by the fact that Louisa and India are the co-founders, directors and sole agents of Reefscape Travel; there is no team operating underneath them that might contradict or second-guess the philosophy underpinning their business.
‘Clients will deal with us and only us,’ said Louisa. ‘We have a smaller number of clients, so we are able to spend a lot of time making sure everything is perfect, from the reservation, to the details of the equipment hire, so it is truly a bespoke, detail-orientated service.’
‘Also,’ adds India, ‘because we don’t have one of us specialising in the Caribbean, one of us specialising in the Indian Ocean, or wherever, we will always give somebody a list of alternatives, because we have the experience.’
The selection of establishments that India and Louisa choose to work with is not based solely on price and exclusivity, but based on their own personal experience of the available services.
‘It’s not necessarily about 5-star luxury,’ said India, ‘it’s about the house reef, the quality of the dive guides, and we’re really picky. We won’t just work with anybody, we like to vet it and go ourselves. It’s something we live by.’
‘We really are obsessed,’ says Louisa. ‘The amount of time we spend speaking to our clients about a specific nudibranch they can see, or maybe octopus mating season in Dumaguete, – we will spend hours talking to our clients before we start putting something together.’
As one might expect from two people who are clearly passionate about both the scuba diving business and the environment in which it exists, sustainability is highest on their list of requirements for the dive operators they deal with.
‘We have an audience already keen to preserve the environment that they’re in and want to feel like they are having a positive impact, and that’s really important for us,‘ says India.
‘We want to send the people who can make a difference to the places that need that difference to be made.’
Find out more from India and Louisa at www.reefscapetravel.com
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