Can the Swimming Industry Still Function in Its Current Form in 2022?

The Covid crisis has torn deep holes in many industries. “Normal” isn’t quite so normal anymore. The old, familiar foundations were overwhelmed by the severe impact the crisis had on how these industries operated. The choices that were made turned out to be the wrong ones, and the very people these organisations are supposed to represent feel “partly” abandoned. Take the hospitality sector and its Koninklijke Horeca Nederland — an institution meant to speak up for a broad range of hospitality businesses. In the end, the outcome of all those endless negotiations still wasn’t enough to get the hospitality sector reopened. And that while every surrounding country had already managed to do exactly that.

Now look at the swimming industry. An institution that has been running the same way for decades. You’ve got the ministry, and beneath it a subsidy provider for municipal real estate, and both are also relevant to the subsidies handed out to industry bodies. The interests tied to big money are enormous. As a result, the real interests fade into insignificance. The swimming industry is supposed to be there for the entire swimming-pool world. Yet throughout the pandemic it became clear that it wasn’t there for everyone. One badly overlooked and incredibly important element was, among other things, swimming lessons. Keeping a pool open just for swimming lessons costs money, after all. So if you’re thinking about your wallet, you keep the pools closed — and that’s where the big money comes into play. And another thing. Why did the “industry” simply agree to the CTB pass? The CTB, the showpiece of VWS — which, incidentally, also provides the subsidies for the cooperating industry bodies — is not something you casually contradict. You don’t go rubbing your own subsidy provider up the wrong way when your subsidy funding is at stake.

So, in short, the institution known as the “cooperating swimming-industry organisations” has revolved around money and power for years. A poor advisor when it comes to the people who actually use the pools. If the “industry bodies” had truly stood up for their users, things would never have got so out of hand. Think of the closures and the CTB pass imposed on pools and on the parents of children taking swimming lessons. How could it ever have got to the point where sport, and above all safety, were used as a bargaining chip by VWS to promote vaccination? The court ruled that the activity of swimming lessons could be classified as an educational activity. This would have made swimming lessons exempt from the CTB pass. The cooperating organisations could have seized on this and genuinely made a difference for every child taking swimming lessons. But no — they pushed back, because you simply can’t be seen to openly disown VWS. An industry that, in my opinion, you could be thoroughly ashamed of.

Now, looking back on two years of battling against a government that seems to be wearing blinkers when it comes to the collateral damage, the gulf has only grown wider. Subsidies were expanded for the parties that played along, work continues stoically, and collateral damage — such as thousands of children being excluded by the CTB pass — is simply taken for granted. These “cooperating parties” belong to a bygone era. The industry needs a shake-up, and the commercial providers who teach swimming lessons — with the genuine aim of contributing to swim safety — need a strong voice against the old guard. Let’s stop letting swim safety and the future of swimming education emerge solely from behind a dusty desk. As politicians, start the conversation about reorganising and shaping the future of swim safety with the parties that are truly forward-looking.