AGENTS are starting to recognise the earnings potential of selling golfing holiday packages following the formation of a trade body for tour operators specialising in golf and the launch of a major golf travel exhibition.
When the International Association of Golf Tour Operators was founded 18 months ago it had just 20 operator members. That figure is now 72 – with 31 of them in the UK – and rising.
A further 213 suppliers – including hotels, golf courses and car-rental companies – have bumped up membership to 285, almost double its original 18-month target.
Chief executive Peter Walton said:”IAGTO membership has well exceeded expectations, showing the enormous potential of the golf holiday market to retail agents.”
The launch of the International Golf Travel Market last year helped to raise the profile of golf holidays and organiser Reed Travel Exhibitions forecasts a big increase in attendance for the second show, being held at Vilamoura in the Algarve from December 1-4.
An estimated 486,000 people in the UK booked golf holidays last year, two-thirds of them abroad. Around 24% of the total booked through direct-sell operators and 16% through agents.
“The golf market has doubled in the last five years,” said Walton. “In the past year, golf holidays have increased 12% – more than double tourism growth in general.”
Emerging long-haul golf destinations include the Great Lakes region and Vermont in the US, while Lisbon is challenging the Algarve as a popular alternative in Portugal.
Operator programmes are expanding – 3D Golf will go transatlantic next year, upping its brochure size from 100 to 164 pages. It will also include a 32-page section on Florida, Myrtle Beach in South Carolina and Arizona. Other new 3D Golf product for 2000 includes the Costa Blanca in Spain, where a dozen featured courses include La Manga, plus Mauritius and golf holiday cruise add-ons out of Miami.
Longshot plans to reintroduce Dubai for 2000, featuring floodlit golf at the Dubai Racing Club, and will add Islantilla in Spain, near the Portuguese border.
Destination Golf will add Virginia to its US programme next year, featuring Wintergreen in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the area around Williamsburg and the Virginia coastal region.
Managing director Mike Robinson said: “Virginia has excellent golf facilities and is a logical development of our North and South Carolina programmes. It will appeal to second and third-time US golf visitors.”
Short-haul business is outstripping long-haul demand for British Airways Golf Holidays, with the Algarve still in number-one spot, according to product manager Mike Wilson.
“With favourable exchange rates against the European currencies, a five-star hotel in the Algarve is much more affordable than a similar property in Florida or South Carolina,” he said.
A new golf programme is offered by P&O Portsmouth. The year-round Self-Drive Golf brochure produced in association with Driveline Golf features 13 courses between Cherbourg, Dieppe and Paris. Two-night bed-and-breakfast hotel packages based on four sharing a car and using P&O’s Portsmouth-Le Havre or Portsmouth-Cherbourg route cost from £89 per person, including golf charges.
Magic Travel Group includes golf in its new Magic Winter Collection, offering discounted green fees and pre-bookable tee times at hotels in Spain, Italy, France and Portugal.
Golfing holidays are not limited to players. Longshot is offering five and eight-night spectator packages to the Ryder Cup at The Country Club in Brookline, Boston, this autumn.
The eight-night ex-Gatwick package departing September 19 costs from £2,699 and the five-night version leaving September 22 from £2,099. Both take in practice and the three match days.