Dr Brian Smith, Director of BRS Golf, the market leading online booking and tee time management system, knows from the feedback from his many satisfied golf club customers that the system is highly capable and has brought much needed additional revenue into a lot of clubs.
However, as a regular golfer and playing member of Belvoir Park GC in Belfast, Brian knows that while the system is very capable, it’s not weather-proof: “2009 must have had the worst August I can recall for rain over here! I know this from the golf I’ve played, and from comparing the July and August figures for the bookings made via BRS for the clubs in Ireland with those in the UK.”
Comparing Irish clubs’ bookings with English, Welsh and Scottish clubs
With over 320 clubs on board, BRS Golf now has as many English, Welsh and Scottish golf club customers using the online booking system as the company has in the whole of Ireland. Interestingly, results for the UK clubs with BRS where the summer 2009 weather patterns were generally more beneficial, were:
July 2,173 bookings (1, 2 or more players)
August 2,136 bookings
In Ireland where the weather was fair to mixed for the early part of the summer but for August was dreadful, BRS clubs saw a significant drop in golf bookings during August:
July 2,041 bookings
August 1,152 bookings
Growing fast: 2009 online bookings in Ireland still up by 50-60% on 2008
Despite the weather, the Irish clubs’ July and August 2009 bookings are still much higher – by between 56% and 63% – than they were in 2008 with 1,249 bookings for July, and 740 for August.
Brian Smith: “This shows that although the BRS system can’t do anything about the weather, it can still help clubs get onto the online bandwagon and make significant additional revenues. In fact, if you compare 2008 with 2009, clubs with BRS are still taking more bookings in 2009 – despite the weather!”
Getting on board with the online booking habit
Brian continues: “While the weather will always be a factor in booking levels – after all, who wants to go out and play when it’s teeming down?! – a much bigger factor is the switch to the online booking habit. The clubs using BRS, especially if they are also dealing with the 3rd party marketing channels integrated with our system such as Teeofftimes.co.uk and Teetimes.co.uk, are really pulling in the financial benefits to their green fee, bar and catering revenues, while the clubs that aren’t are getting left behind.”
“Even clubs that simply want to enhance their membership numbers and value are finding BRS is the ideal marketing tool. We know from the feedback that members of private and proprietary clubs much prefer to book with certainty a tee time from the comfort and convenience of their home or office, instead of having to go to the club and wait for the tee to clear.
“Club managers using BRS to capture e-mail addresses, build databases and use them to e-mail their members and visitors are also getting higher take-up of forthcoming events and attracting more new members.”
“So BRS Golf may not be weather-proof, but it seems to be increasingly recession-proof!” concludes Dr Smith.
BRS Golf www.brsgolf.com