Page 66 - GBC Spring 2017 eng

It was great to see the NGCOA Canada testing the waters on tourism as a potential mandate for the Association at the Canadian Golf Tourism Summit in November 2016.
Tourism is bigger than just golf. It involves accommodations, restaurants, and other activities. Each successful tourism sector has an industry led organization champ- ioning its cause and working strateg- ically at all levels of government.
What these governments want is to work with industry led groups on strategies, programming, execution, and combined funding. If golf is to successfully work in the tourism sector with government, it needs an organization to liaise with governments to drive a tourism strategy that includes golf. Why not the NGCOA Canada? Being the voice of golf course owners and operators, there is no other Canadian golf organization better positioned for the task.
The NGCOA Canada also has the means to work vertically with all levels of government and can cohesively and jointly access invest- ment, education, and influence on tourism.
Tourism is not simply about inbound tourism but also intercept tourism. Intercept tourism is where we keep tax dollars in our country and more specifically in our provinces, by keeping our citizens at home. For example, Alberta sees many Calgarians drive to British Columbia. If we can give them a reason to stay in Alberta by staying in Calgary or stopping in Canmore
The Parting Shot
Everyone Is In Tourism
or Banff instead of BC, we keep the money and tax dollars in Alberta. This is positive for the provincial governments. The strategy around intercept tourism involves all courses.
Tourism will have a positive effect on all courses for two reasons. First, if places like Banff don’t fill with tourists, we are forced to look more regionally and locally for our play. This means turning our marketing dollars and value equations towards these regional and local markets and stealing business from other regional and local golf operations.
When forced to do this it creates an imbalance in the market. It is in everyone’s best interests to have the tourism courses filling with inbound tourists making a larger regional and local pool of golfers available to courses satisfying these markets.
Secondly, I believe all courses can benefit from having more golf centric tourists. These golfers usually spend more on their total golf experience. While they may initially come to a place like Banff, they are often looking for multiple golf experiences while on their trip or other options for future return trips.
My message; everyone is in tourism. Everyone wins from a higher yielding client, more fish in the sea and keeping people playing in their area from leaving to go to another destination. The govern- ment has resources and needs an industry leader to emerge in golf to facilitate access and coordination of resources with them.
The NGCOA Canada is perfectly suited to this task and have generated contacts and capabilities with governments through existing lobbying work over golf tax issues. It will cost the Association resources, mainly staff time, but I believe the return is worth it.
66Golf Business Canada
Steven Young
Steven is the Director of Golf at the historic Stanley Thompson designed Fairmont Banff Springs Golf Course in Banff, AB. Steven can be reached at 403-762-6878 or steve.young@fairmont.com.