PADI stands for the Professional Association of Diving Instructors.

The Worldwide PADI diving organisation is a privately held company which is the largest recreational diving training organisation; in terms of diving PADI has around 50% of the market share. This is visibly apparent as no matter where you travel on Earth (from tropical locations on pacific coastlines to inner cities in Europe), you will always be able to find a PADI diving centre to offer you diving support (in the case of experienced divers) to a PADI scuba diving course (for those wishing to develop their diving skills).