The review site for golf courses Leadingcourses.com and the Swedish golf card provider Golfhäftet have entered into a strategic partnership. Through this partnership, both parties aim to strengthen each other’s position in the European market.
Both the golf courses and golfers will appear as the big winners as a result of the partnership: Golfhäftet and Leadingcourses.com will bring golfers and golf courses closer together by providing golfers the opportunity to experience golf courses throughout Europe at an attractive introductory rate.
Golf courses will be able to attract new customers, who can leave their reviews afterwards on Leadingcourses.com. The reviews will help courses to improve their service while also enhancing their online visibility. And, due to the higher number of verified reviews – golfers can be traced back to the card – ratings and rankings of Leadingcourses.com will become even more reliable. It will also provide golfers with more options to filter reviews based on their personal preferences. There are now over 700 golf clubs who accept the Golfhäftet-card and this number is growing steadily each year.
Golfers increasingly use review sites in their search for new golf destinations and golf courses. Leadingcourses.com recognizes this trend.
“In recent years we noticed a growing demand for inspiring and accurate information about new golf destinations and new or unexplored golf courses,” says Jeroen Korving, Managing Director of Leadingcourses.com. He continues: “We also have seen the emergence of quite a lot of golf card providers catering to this trend. The major disadvantage of many of such cards is the list of conditions and restrictions, the limited coverage in Europe, the acceptance at the course itself and the fact that discounts often affects profitability. The Golfhäftet card does not have these limitations.
“We’ve often thought about launching a simple and effective golf card ourselves, allowing golfers to play at new courses without a lot of restrictions. But to do this properly, you need focus and specialised expertise. Our strength lies in the field of independent golf course reviews, so we decided to stay focused. Through our network in Europe, we ended up at Golfhäftet. Their philosophy fits ours and they also share our ambition to grow in Europe. The simple nature and the broad acceptance of the Golfhäftet card made it easy for us to enter into a partnership with Golfhäftet. They have a good product: it’s no-nonsense and no fine print, “said Korving.
Growth strategy
For Leadingcourses.com the collaboration with Golfhäftet is a next step in their growth strategy. Jeroen Korving, Managing Director at Leadingcourses.com: “Although we have quite a strong position in Europe, we have set ambitious goals to accelerate our growth in certain focus markets, such as Sweden, Germany and France. Golfhäftet is a major player in Scandinavia, with over 40,000 members. Through the cooperation and the exchange of reviews Leadingcourses.com will obtain a strong foothold in the Scandinavian market. Golfhäftet in return will be able to grow in the rest of Europe through exposure on the Leadingcourses.com platform. Because both companies share the same vision, while having no overlapping business models, we expect that we can really reinforce each other.”
Fredrik van Speijk, CEO of Golfhäftet: “Through this collaboration our Nordic partner clubs will get a direct way to market to the hundreds of thousands of European golfers visiting LeadingCourses.com each month, at no additional cost. We’re convinced that this will increase the exposure of our partner clubs and in the end bring more foreign customers to our partner clubs.
“The rating system of our partner clubs at Golfhäftet, currently only available via the Golfhäftet website, will be integrated with LeadingCourses.com. This will make it easier for golfers to select interesting courses to play, based on ratings from even more golfers. Together with Leadingcourses.com our aim is to provide our customers with even more European courses to enjoy and to play.”
Loyal members are rewarded
In September it will be possible for members of Leadingcourses.com to purchase the Golfhäftet card online and to see where they can play with the card. The higher the status, the higher the discount a member can obtain on the card. Jeroen Korving: “The Golfhäftet card provides us a nice opportunity to reward our loyal members for all their reviews and photos. The discount can add up to 20 euros.”
The Golfhäftet-card will cost 59 euro per year for non-members. It offers a 50% discount on 700 golf courses throughout Europe. The cardholder will receive this discount only once per course per year. After two or three times a golfer will break even on the cost of the card.
Golfhäftet www.golfhaftet.se
Leadingcourses.com www.leadingcourses.com
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