Golf Operator Magazine
In an email this morning Golf Operator Magazine came out with a post titled “Golf Now is Golf FREE”. The essence of the post is that with Golf Now’s recent purchase of “LastMinuteGolfer.com” your golf course’s tee times can now be sold at an all time lowest rate possible. It appears Golf Now takes their last minute unsold inventory you have given them and moves it over to lastminutegolfer.com. And you, the golf course owner/operator will not even be aware of the rate.
You can read the full post here.
We did some of our own research on local BC last minute tee times and were quite surprised at what we found! See the screen shots below.
The BC golf market has done a reasonable job at keeping Golf Now at bay, but they are pushing hard. We get calls from our clients almost daily telling us how they have again been approached by Golf Now. Giving up control of your tee times and your rates is never in the best interest of your golf club. It also hurts the whole golf industry in your region as the golfer gets accustomed to looking for the lowest rate.
In response to issues regarding 3rd Party Resellers the NGCOA Canada has written an Official Policy Statement. Please read the statement and form your own opinion. Proceed with caution.
If you would like to discuss this or any other yield management strategies, feel free to connect with us anytime. We will be at the NGCOA Conference in Victoria November 21st to 23rd and look forward to seeing you all.
Jeff & Tara Ciecko of CK Golf Solutions write two blogs on their website, one is their 19th Hole Blog where they share personal experiences and the Biz Blog where they share business best practices and golf industry related opinions. They have owned CK Golf Solutions for 6 years and provide marketing, social media and business services to the golf and other industries.
Great read.
I’ll ask the hard question, by posing a statement.
We could all use less inventory out there….
I just want to say thank you for the information on discounting, yes it is Killing the industry and I couldn’t agree more. The question is what can we do about it? and I believe it starts with educating the operators with the negative effects That company’s like Golf Now and Last Minute golfer are having with the erosion of green fee’s.
Thanks for the comments JP and Doug. The point of the post was to create awareness among golf course owners/operators 🙂
We elected to pay for technology services received in 2014 – no trade of any kind, anywhere. Ask me in November if it was the right move! Philosophically, I feel great.
Thank you for sharing this info discounted tee times. Please keep it up