Are You Willing To Cooperate?
January 10, 2011 by Ian Hutchinson
If you’ve ever been to Ontario’s cottage country north of Toronto, you’ll see why it’s a magnificent area in which to build a golf course with its magnificent trees, lakes, rock outcroppings and other natural attributes that so nicely complement the game.
However, as has been the case over the past 20 years, a lot of people have had the same idea and Muskoka has become one of those oversaturated areas in which supply outweighs demand like so many other areas across the country.
That’s one challenge. Another is that, being a few hours away from the heavily populated areas such as Toronto, Hamilton and the Golden Horseshoe in general, Muskoka is a fair haul for somebody wanting to get away for a round of golf and returning the same day.
The truth is that there are plenty of good golf courses in around the Greater Toronto area that make such a long haul to Muskoka, as beautiful as it is, completely unnecessary.
That doesn’t make golf in Muskoka a lost cause, just reason to abandon the build-it-and-they-will-come attitude.
As Don MacKay, the owner of Muskoka Highlands in Bracebridge and new president of the National Golf Course Owners Association of Canada, pointed out in this blog last week, there is plenty of golf product, both moderately priced and high end, that will appeal to all budgets in Muskoka.
If you could somehow market the region as a longer stay destination, teasing people with one of the high end courses to play one day combined with a more moderately-priced facility the next, Muskoka as a golf destination might work for couples, buddies or families.
Such as effort would require the cooperation and resources of several golf courses in a region, not only Muskoka, and perhaps even some of the hotels/resorts in that area.
Such cooperative efforts are nothing new in golf, but MacKay sees them becoming more commonplace as different regions across the country try to find new and innovative ways to get golfers out on their fairways and greens.
That brings us to our GNN Poll for this week.
Are you involved or would you ever get involved in a cooperative effort to market golf in your area or do you prefer to market your course on its own merit?
- Group efforts are necessary these days (79%)
- I'll market my course on my own (21%)
Thank-you.
Loading ...Be sure to cast your vote and, as always, we welcome you to expand your thoughts in the Comments section below.
Ian Hutchinson is a veteran Canadian golf writer, whose history in the game includes an extensive background with Canadian golf trade publications. A golf columnist with Sun Media, Hutch is also a regular contributor to publications and websites in Canada and the United States.
Here in Atlantic Canada there has been the tenency of marketing each Province on their own. About 10 years ago we did a great National Promotion as Golf Atlantic Canada and it worked very well.
It is time once again the four Provinces came together and went to the Consumer Shows as a group that entices Golfers / Visitors to come to enjoy the whole area. Statistics show us that 65% of visitors will visit 2 or more Provinces anyway.
Some of the Provincial Groups have their own Provincial hats on so tight they are afraid they will lose business to the other Provinces.
Pooled resources, pooled product offering with combined marketing strategy and going to market with a coordinated come and enjoy Atlantic Canada would attract many more Golf / Visitors…
Everyone wins…
Ian, as you know, the Muskoka region had a marketing consortium in place for several years that was well developed and organized. One of the reasons for this was a financial investment by Ontario Tourism that provided an incentive to market collectively, but there were never any marketing efforts in Southern Ontario. One of the issues with marketing groups, of any kind, is knowing when to compete and when to cooperate.
It seems to me that it would be difficult to get resorts to cooperate in marketing to the relatively close in markets of the GTA. I would assume that most of the business is focussed on weekend or short get away trips, which individual resorts can provide by themselves. It is only in longer haul markest such as Detroit or Rochester that longer trips are feasible and require multiple course packages.
One solution is the development of packages for the GTA market, but I doubt there is enough commission to make it worthwhile for a tour operator to provide out of the GTA.
The other issue to consider is the role of Clublink and their properties. I’m not now familiar with what they are doing, but if their courses are essentially closed to the public golfer, then it does take some of the product off the market.
The BC golf industry has developed a good model for competition and cooperation.
Cheers