Your Golf Travel, the UK’s largest golf travel company, has bought US tour operator GolfThere as it seeks to expand its operations into the lucrative American market.
GolfThere, which was founded in 1990 as Fairways Golf, is understood to be the US’s largest golf tour operator, and a YGT statement confirmed that it has bought the company’s assets and brands for an undisclosed ‘six-figure sum’. Your Golf Travel intends to keep the GolfThere brand, and the company will operate as a division of US subsidiary Your Golf Travel Incorporated.
The acquisition marks the first step of Your Golf Travel’s plans to expand internationally, with the US being the largest market, with other markets to follow ‘over the coming years’, said the company.
“We are delighted to add such a well renowned and established brand in the USA into our portfolio of companies” said YGT chief executive Ross Marshall. “It’s a great opportunity to expand our reach into the American domestic market, as well as grow our inbound business from the region into the UK and Ireland. GolfThere since its inception has had over 650,000 travellers, and we look forward to building on that success by continuing to provide a personalised and tailor-made service to those golfers.”
GolfThere currently boasts over 2,000 contracted suppliers, which includes many well known global golf destinations and operators with which YGT has existing relationships, among them Troon Golf, Pebble Beach, Marriott, Reynolds Lake Oconee and Ritz Carlton. GolfThere predominantly handles North America customers travelling domestically, but it also operates in Mexico, Dominican Republic, Scotland and Ireland.
Andrew Smith, YGT’s chief product and operations officer, added: “We are looking to connect with all our key US suppliers over the coming weeks. GolfThere has a great reputation and strong network of suppliers, and we’re very excited about the opportunity that lies ahead to significantly grow our business in the US and beyond. We acknowledge that GolfThere has had a challenging past few months leading up to the sale, but will ensure business is usual moving forward and that all clients who made bookings with GolfThere will be fulfilled to our usual levels of expertise.”
The National Golf Foundation in America recently reported that just over eight million golfers played 57 million rounds of golf whilst travelling for business or leisure in 2017, and that the overall industry in the USA is worth $20.5 billion, with 40% of adult golfers including an overnight stay during which they played at least one round of golf.
Your Golf Travel https://www.yourgolftravel.com/