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Hello and welcome to the Revenue Alert newsletter series, presented by Noteefy!
This series summarizes the best ideas, strategies, and insights in the world of golf course revenue management. If you are looking for fresh tactics from some of the industry’s best leaders to grow your course or portfolio’s profitability, this is for you.
The topic today is the top four biggest mistakes Revenue Managers make in 2024, according to Chris May (SVP @ Supreme Golf), Ashley van Dissel (VP of Sales & Marketing at Touchstone) and Eric Garber (Golf Coordinator at the County of Palm Beach).
These are the four biggest mistakes Chris, Ashley, and Eric see golf course revenue managers making in 2024.
Not collecting the data (Name & Email) of all golfers in the group in a tee time instead of just capturing the “captain” who reserved the time.
To build a healthy customer email list for marketing activations and customer behavior analysis- everyone that comes to play needs to be in your database. While the solution is well known (encourage staff to collect all this information), overcoming the urge to prioritize speed over capturing this information is extremely important. In some cases, the tee sheet software you use may be able to be configured to require this information. A course we talked to even bonused frontline staff based on a minimum percentage of data collected relative to all people passing through.
Over-reliance on the local competition to determine green fees instead of more dynamic variables.
It is a common industry practice to set prices by looking at the other courses in the local market, then instinctually determining the green fees by comparing course quality (better or worse) to those competitors. If the course is seen as better, it is priced higher. If worse, it’s lower.
This practice may be under or overvaluing your inventory and not factoring in in other variables that drive price (weather, demand patterns, even local events like a football game). Setting the optimal green fee price can move the revenue needle significantly on the top line. Technology solutions like demand pricing that factors in current utilization, weather, and historical demand (in addition to competitive set) is a good alternative. Future demand data visualization can also provide signal into the optimal tee sheet market price.
For example, the “Demand Crystal Ball” that Noteefy provides to courses visualizes real time future demand of golfers requesting specific times during of the day. The image below shows a busy public golf course where surprisingly more than 50 golfers are on standby to play. Several operators are using this information to make their future pricing decisions or even add last minute squeeze times.
Golf technology companies like Priswing and Sagacity, among others, review factors like weather, utilization, and historical data to establish the optimal price.
The takeaway is that there are simply far too many variables to optimize price than by just looking at the local competitive set. The price that golfers are willing to pay is fluid and leveraging the technology of dynamic pricing may be a good solution for your course.
Not enforcing a cancelation policy if someone short shows or no-shows for their tee time.
Many operators do not enforce a cancelation policy when golfers no-show or short-show. For example, one operator we spoke to saw almost 8,000 rounds result in no-shows over the course of 2023. This perishable inventory cost the course over $300,000, leaving valuable revenue on the table.
Other hospitality operators such as airlines, movie theaters, and hotels always charge if there is a no-show. The key to this is collecting the credit card in advance from the golfer in the online tee sheet. While there is always a risk of customers disputing the charge, the simple threat of a cancelation charge almost always reduces the no-call no-show rate.
As an example, a course leveraging Noteefy saw an immediate boost in last-minute revenue after instituting a $20 cancelation policy that was enforced.
Not considering the potential negative revenue impact of tournaments vs public play if the demand exists.
Pre-COVID, tournaments were often a great way to securely fill the tee sheet, even if at a discounted rate. Now, however, tournaments may actually have a detrimental revenue impact on the course revenue if 1. the tee sheet would have filled at rack rate from public play or 2. the tournament is not secured by a cancellation policy and is subjected to short shows resulting in lost rounds.
Touchstone’s Ashley van Dissel notes that their course’s Sales team is coached to consider the full impact of when the tournament is scheduled for, avoiding high utilization times and optimal green fee prices.
To avoid short shows in tournaments, many operators leverage their automated waitlist technology to instantly notify golfers if there is last minute inventory that comes online.
Interested in hearing the full episode from Chris May, Ashley van Dissel, or Eric Garber as they dig into other trends?
Thanks again and hopefully you found this valuable. Have specific topics you are interested in hearing about from executives in the golf management space? Reply to this email and let me know!
Cheers and many birdies to you,
Jake Gordon
CEO, Co-Founder @ Noteefy
