Page 14 - Summer eng 2017

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Golf Business Canada
weather that was difficult to recover from, yielding BC having the weakest annual Weather Score. In terms of timing, the month of April impressed the most overall for Canadian golfers with favourable weather from coast to coast, and a nice bump in rounds played to show for it.
Looking ahead for the 2017 golf season, Environment Canada’s predictive intelligence calls for relatively normal golf weather across Canada. Spring is forecasted to be a little warmer than usual for most of the country, especially northern BC, northern Alberta and most of Ontario. Eastern Quebec and Atlantic Canada are the exception, where cooler than average temperatures are predicted. Most of the country is expected to have normal precipitation patterns during the spring golf season, with the exception of above average rainfall likely in Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and southern Nova Scotia. No province is expected to
have below normal spring rainfall.
As summer arrives, temperatures are predicted to be warmer than
usual everywhere except Saskatchewan and Manitoba, who should experience normal temperatures. Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland and Quebec should see the most significant warmer than usual trends. Precipitation from coast to coast is expected to be normal during these summer months and into September.
As the golf season winds down in the fall, Environment Canada calls for mostly normal temperatures across Canada, with no regions cooler than usual. Vancouver Island, Northern Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI should experience late season temperatures that are warmer than normal, more likely to extend the golf season than other regions. Precipitation in the fall is predicted to be normal in all parts of the country.
Overall, it appears that the probability of relatively normal Canadian weather is high for the 2017 golf season, without an expectation that the weather will seriously help or hurt course operators. Local variances will be at play but the net blended national impact of weather is not expected to significantly skew rounds played or revenues. That would, however, mean less favourable weather impact than the country experienced in both the 2015 and 2016 golf seasons.
exPeNse BudGets
The two leading expense indicators surveyed in the Report were labour and maintenance budgets.
Let’s start with labour. In 2016, 16% of Canadian golf course operators reported that they reduced labour costs, while 25% remained flat, and 59% increased. The Report breaks down these results into 7 ranges, with the largest of those being that 46% had labour cost increases between 1-5%. For 2017, the trend is similar, but with more operators intending to reduce labour and fewer expecting to increase, 18% and 50% respectively.
Maintenance budgets in 2016 were reduced by 22% of courses, flat by 46%, and increased by 32%. Once again, the Report breaks these expenses down into 7 ranges, with the highest response being 24% increasing their maintenance budget between 1-5%.
In 2017, those same operators are forecasting deeper investments into their maintenance, with only 13% decreasing, 43% flat, and 44% intending to increase budget. Once again, the largest range was an increase of 1-5%, this time by 42% of operators.
teChNOlOGy tReNds
The NGCOA Canada Pulse Report also profiles several technology trends. Among those, the overwhelming most successful digital media strategy is still email marketing. Social media ranked second, but well behind email, and mobile apps were a very distant third.
Intuitively, many would have anticipated more deterioration in the success of email as social media and apps gained traction but this trend appears to be a slow moving one.
Within the social media space, golf course operators were asked to rank the most important platforms for the success of their businesses. Facebook is still perceived to lead the pack, by far. Twitter ranked second most effective, Instagram came in third, and Google+ was fourth.
All other social media rated quite low, with YouTube and LinkedIn leading among the remaining six platforms that were surveyed. Of course, the question of how many operators are effectively leveraging the potential of these social media platforms remains a variable to be interpreted.
Mobile apps were only engaged by 42% of all operators. Of those, 44% reported that they book more than 25% of their tee times through the app, 15% booked between 10-25%, and 41% booked less than 10%. The expectation is that mobile app usage by both golf courses and golfers will gain more momentum in 2017.
The Report also summarizes the various channels for tee time reservations, with operators selecting all that apply. The most commonly used channel remains direct telephone bookings, followed by online tee time systems. There was a substantial drop from there to mobile apps. Third party resellers, including destination website bookings, were engaged by 30% of those surveyed.