The 2016 Asia Pacific Golf Summit came to the Thai city of Hua Hin and raised the bar by staging one of the best ever knowledge conferences on the business of the club industry.
In a tightly focused session, APGS 2016 explored the future of the golf club industry, the role and importance of effective marketing and experiential-generating service to grow the club industry in Asia.
Special focus was also brought to bear on the challenge of making the game of golf relevant to younger generations like the “Millennials” and generations like “Gen Z”, the new emerging generation.
What was a stand-out feature of APGS 2016 was its deep-dive into identifying the challenges faced by the industry and to seek out effective solutions. If anything at all, the pathway has been established for the creation of a new mind-set to grow the club industry in Asia.
The man who set the pace and the mood for the Summit was Dr. Ken Chu, chairman and chief executive of the giant Mission Hills Group, the world’s largest golf resort with 22 golf courses in China. Dr. Chu built his presentation on a living example – his sprawling US$10 billion complex on Haikou, Hainan and in Shenzhen, China.
The theme was “Golf and More” which clearly illustrated how the Mission Hills group markets and engages with all levels of consumers, especially families, to offer a wide-range of facilities and services from golf to life-style experiences and entertainment from dining to shows etc.
“Golf and More” is working for Mission Hills and this year is expected to see some 10 million tourists touch down at its attractions and over 1 million rounds of golf generated on its 22 golf courses.
Commenting on APGS 2016, the globally revered guru of clubs, Gregg Patterson had this to say: “I thought this year’s conference was the best ever- each speaker had time to develop their topic, each was GREAT (I thoroughly enjoyed having the dialogue with Ken Chu- so many fabulous themes he addressed). The welcome reception was super and I LOVE the awards gala dinner (although I’m intimidated by the number of awards that need to be announced but it goes fast because it’s fun and, selfishly, I have a chance to shake each winner’s hand and for me, that’s special!).
APGS 2016 was staged at the exotic five-star resort of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Hua Hin on October 29-30. Speakers included Andrew Wood, founder and president of Legendary Marketing LLC; Gabe Aluisy, founder and president of Shake Creative, John Solheim, chairman of the PING Corporation and David Leadbetter of the Leadbetter Academy. Full videos of the various addresses will be available shortly.
More than 200 owners, operators and club general managers from Asia and as far as the Middle East gathered at the 2016 Asian Golf Awards to recognise and celebrate the crème de la crème of the golf club industry.
In the seventeenth staging of the Asian Golf Awards, the only pan-Asian award for the golf industry, the best amongst the best were honoured and celebrated from over 40 award categories.
The industry’s annual “Oscars” for golf was staged at the five-star resort of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in the royal city of Hua Hin in Thailand on October 30. It culminated the 10th anniversary of the longest-running conference on the business of golf – the Asia Pacific Golf Summit. The big turn-out at the gala awards banquet was again a clear sign of support and validation of the importance of the Asian Golf Awards to the entire golf industry in Asia.
The award winners for the 2016 Asian Golf Hall Of Fame were:
- Ken Chu, chairman and chief executive of the Mission Hills Group in China –
- John Solheim, chairman of the PING Corporation –
The 2016 Asia Pacific Life-Time Achievement in Golf was presented to:
- Madame Nguyen Thi Nga, Chairman, BRG Group
The final award, the Global Golf Legend Award was presented to:
- David Leadbetter – The Leadbetter Golf Academy
Asia Pacific Golf Summit www.golfconference.org