On Line Booking Puts The World In Reach of England's Golf Coast
Golfers from around the world planning to tackle the unique challenge of England's Golf Coast can now book their tee times on line.
Famous and historic courses - including last year's Open Championship host Royal Liverpool - have adopted a new system introduced as part of the England's Golf Coast campaign.
The new on line booking system is a significant development for the worldwide marketing campaign promoting England's Northwest as the country's premier golf destination. It also provides participating golf clubs with enhanced data analysis and management information.
On Line tee time booking facilities are now available at 12 of England's Golf Coast's 20 venues across Merseyside, Lancashire, Cheshire and Cumbria.
The Mersey Partnership (TMP) has introduced the system on behalf of partners led by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), which funds the England's Golf Coast campaign.
TMP Golf Development Manager Charlie Grimley said: "On line tee time booking is a significant development for both our participating venues and the players they attract from all over the world."
He added: "This system's advanced features greatly enhance the service we can provide via our website englandsgolfcoast.com. It makes it easy for visiting golfers to plan their entire trip with accommodation and golf times handled quickly and efficiently on line. Each of the venues which has signed up to adopt the system also benefits from access to detailed data which can help them plan more effectively and maximise their opportunities to attract more golfers to their courses and our region. We currently receive an average of more than 100,000 web hits per month. Around 17,000 of these are from the USA, underlining the fact that there is huge interest for our golf offer in that massive market and elsewhere in the world."
The contract for the new system was awarded to market leaders BRS Golf www.brsgolf.com and is based on the market-leading BRS Tee Time Manager system. It is recognised as the market leading Internet based tee time management system in the U.K. and Ireland with over 150+ customers.
Dr Brian Smith, Sales and Marketing for BRS Golf, said: "The uptake of the system has been fantastic. The participating clubs could see the benefit of the BRS Tee Time Manager straight away in terms of better management, reporting and ultimately more golfers through the door. We look forward to seeing the results over the coming year."
Features of the system include:
o 18 hole, 9 hole, two tee start and multiple course clubs
o Full enquiry handling system for society bookings
o On-line booking system for Members to book via the club web site
o On-line booking system for Visitors to book and pay via the club web site
o Over 40 management reports including revenue and course usage
o Improved efficiency
o Increased revenue
o New marketing opportunities
o A better understanding of how course are being used
o Reduced phone calls from members and visitors
The England's Golf Coast campaign was devised to target golfers both in the UK and key markets in Europe and North America as a way of boosting golf tourism. Golf already accounts for a £10m economic impact in the region.
Peter Mearns, Director of Marketing at the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), said: "England's Golf Coast boasts the highest concentration of championship links courses in the world, making it the ideal destination for Golf enthusiasts. The opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the golf masters, by visiting some of the world's most challenging and naturally beautiful golf courses, presents a unique tourism opportunity that we intend to fully exploit with the help of the new online booking system."
The England's Golf Coast venues offering on line tee time reservations are:
Royal Liverpool Golf Club
Heswall Golf Club
Wallasey Golf Club
West Lancashire Golf Club
Southport & Ainsdale Golf Club
Hillside Golf Club
Hesketh Golf Club
Fairhaven Golf Club
St Annes Old Links Golf Club
Lytham Green Drive Golf Club
Silloth on Solway Golf Club
Windermere Golf Club
Ends
Issued: 21st May 2007
For further Media Information Please Contact: Tony Storey, TMP, Tel: 0151 237 3944 tony.storey@merseyside.org.uk
Note to Editors:
As part of the development of the EGC golfing product, the England's Golf Coast partners via TMP has identified the need for the courses of the region to adopt an integrated online tee time management and booking system to help England's Golf Coast partner stakeholders maximise the potential of the region as a premium golfing destination. This is with a view to installing a user-friendly tee time management system to enable the golf clubs of the campaign to maximise their spare tee time availability through utilising valuable reports generated from the system (identifying peaks and troughs).
As well as improving the efficiency of the administrative role of tee-time management within clubs, the online booking system will unlock potential sectors of the golfing market such as the US market. This will be possible as the system will be accessible by potential visitors 24/7 and provide a quick and easy booking method for administrators, members and visitors outside UK office hours, all around the world. The system will also unlock potential golf tour operator business providing a quick and easy booking method (seeing availability at a cross section of clubs) and also provide the opportunity to offer preferential availability to selected partners who can view availability before the general public (therefore increasing the levels of business within preferred segments - e.g. US).
This system will also provide valuable information for the EGC campaign to a) quantify the marketing decisions from the performance management data supplied. This information would be analysed by the travel trade group who would shape the campaign activity from this data.
An interface is to be developed on the englandsgolfcoast.com website to highlight availability at the cross section of golf courses, to provide a one-stop shop for booking a golfing break on England's Golf Coast. This interface will provide availability at all the participating golf clubs. This system will highlight availability at other participating courses when there is no availability at the customers chosen course, it will also highlight the next available date at the chosen course. levels of business being generated by the campaign and b) make more informed campaign.
