A new independent business will help golf courses maximise their green fee revenue from an online source – meet The Revenue Club.
The way people book golf continues to evolve, meaning online and mobile bookings are becoming an increasing proportion of a golf course’s visitor revenue.
The Revenue Club is a new business, which provides golf courses with the opportunity to outsource their online visitor marketing strategy and activity, on a no-strings attached monthly subscription. The Revenue Club provide a strategy which in turn is approved by the course, and then carry out all the arduous marketing and administrative tasks linked with digital green fee management. This can include dynamic pricing updates, email campaigns, social media management, reporting, online review management and more.
Duncan Rougvie and Chris Knight, the Directors of The Revenue Club were part of the senior team that helped develop the successful Teeofftimes.co.uk, which has over 1,700 partner courses and booked over 650,000 golfers online in 2016.
Prior to joining Teeofftimes.co.uk, Chris completed the Applied Golf Management Studies degree at the University of Birmingham and has worked for both De Vere Resorts and Macdonald Hotels. Duncan also honours degree level educated has over ten years’ experience working in golf sales and advertising with large brands such as Teeofftimes, De Vere Resorts, Bauer Media and Yell.com.
The Directors of The Revenue Club predict the volume of golf booked online will continue to rapidly increase as it bares a resemblance to the trends seen in the hotel industry a few years ago. Now, around 70% of all hotel reservations are made online through either the hotel’s own website or through online third parties such as Expedia or Booking.com. Of that 70% around half of the online reservations in the hotel industry are made directly through the hotel’s own website. A typical golf course only receives around 15% of online bookings through their own website, underperforming in comparison to other industries.
Chris Knight, Director of The Revenue Club commented, “Revenue management is a big part of what we do at The Revenue Club, understanding the performance of each booking channel and the associated costs is crucial to a successful digital green fee strategy. Once this has been established we can actively promote channels which are underperforming, these usually consist of a golf courses direct booking platforms such as their website and social media. Studies indicate the total number of visitor rounds played in the UK have been fairly consistent over the past few years, however I know from working closely with golf courses and the data generated through Teeofftimes/GolfNow that the proportion of those booked online is rapidly increasing”.
Duncan Rougvie, Director of The Revenue Club said, “Over the past six years I have helped over four hundred golf courses create bespoke online pricing structures aimed at increasing their visitor booking revenue. Often golf courses struggle to identify their optimum price, at the right time, for each booking channel. The Revenue Club is only one month old and it’s fantastic to already be working QHotels, De Vere and independent courses such as Owston Hall and Morley Hayes. Each golf course requires a slightly different service from us, however almost universally a basic lack of time and onsite expertise in online visitor golf has been the significant driver for our golf course partners employing The Revenue Club’s services. We believe that our monthly subscription service is a cost-effective way to bring in an online revenue management and marketing specialist into a golf course operation.”
Chris Knight can be reached on 07468 564 555 or chris@therevenueclub.co.uk.
The Revenue Club www.therevenueclub.co.uk