With less than three months to go before the decision makers of golf in Europe descend on Berlin for the third annual European Golf Business Conference, organisers have announced some of the major topics that will be covered.
The conference, titled ‘The Big Change’, will take place from 5th – 7th November and will see the top business minds in European and international golf come together to debate some of the game’s hottest topics.
The main speakers at the conference include:
• David MacLaren, director of venue and property at the European Golf Tour who will discuss about how to make a golf course profit;
• Bill Sanderson, also known as the Golf Business coach, will entertain and fascinate conference delegates with his view on how to market their venues; and
• Laurence Pithie, group golf course manager at Crown Golf – the biggest European operator – who will speak about green keeping and maintenance issues.
Other speakers will be announced on the conference website in due course. Topics will both be on a practical and on a strategic level and ‘The Big Change’ will be the central theme to each discussion.
Specific topics include:
• The presentation of the outcome of European research will be presented. EGCOA compared the structure of golf in many European countries and asked what can we learn from each other and what is peculiar in some countries? This will also include financing golf courses: what are alternatives, how to present your project to the bank.
• Speed of Play: how can we get those golfers moving to improve their on-course experience.
• KPMG will announce the outcome of the European Economic Impact Study: what is the value of the golf industry in Europe.
• A senior manager from the fitness industry will tell about the experiences in his industry: hard competition gave them inspiration for excellent retention marketing: the big challenge for the golf industry.
Details of how to register and conference news updates are available at
www.egcoa.eu/conference2008
European Golf Course Owners Association www.egcoa.eu