1st, create a Society of Professional mermaids (SMP) . Upon membership this would give out a Guide to professional mermaiding that would detail everything from Courses, to what to charge, places that hire to places that insure Mer business. A good society would be able to partner with Naui, SSI, AIDA or whoever to qualify specific mermaid courses.
2nd step would be to convince the Aquariums, hotels, dive bars that quals are necessary for safety and assume step 3 goes to plan makes insuring a mermaid show cheaper.
The 3rd step would be talking to insurance companies about proper qualifications
4th step would be to market Courses to the beginner community In a fun manner.


I've pretty much done most of this in my country. We have a much smaller mermaid base, mainly people recreation ally in pools. Few professionals. Our company is certainly the largest of working mermaids. I've also TRIED to do that by offering professional development courses from various industry experts at the mermaid conventions I have hosted (such as NC Mermania). I think there's a lot of standards not just swimming that need to be regulated in our industry. Working with kids for example. Mers need background checks and should be held to the same standards as any other professional working with kids (such as volunteers, teachers, etc)

I worked with our governing water safety body to create regulations for allowing mers to recreationally swim in pools, and now am working with AIDA on the freediving end of it for mers in Canada.

I don't know if the mer community will ever accept any kind of authority. I think it'll be tricky to establish one, let alone have anyone respect it. I have the advantage at least in Canada that the industry is small enough I know everyone and have been able to help facilitate insurance, training, and standards.

I see mermaid performing very much as circus and fire performing. Standards tend to vary based on who you go through and there will always sadly be the outliers who don't care about any. AIDA is helping us make a province based (because each province has varying laws) safety standard at least.