Maxx Marketing News

Golf Course Study Part 2 of 3

Oct 22/05 - This is part 2 of a research project undertaken by Alberta Economic Development in 2004.

LOUISIANA’S AUDUBON GOLF TRAIL
Baton Rouge, LA
Website: http://www.AudubonGolf.com

Background:

The Audubon Golf Trail is a consortium of nine golf courses in the State of Louisiana.
The consortium was founded in 2001 after the Lt Governor of the State had appointed a
task force in the late 1990s to investigate various methods to set up a consortium with the
state along the lines of the very successful Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in the
neighboring state of Alabama.
The first concept to establish a State Trail in 1999 had been to tap into surplus state
revenues to build golf courses, but insufficient funds were available and political
opposition to the plan precluded this method. In 200, the State put forth an RFP for a
developer to submit bids to construct a number of new golf courses on State Park land, as
Alabama had done. However, for a variety of reasons, no bids were submitted that met
the criteria of the State Tourism Dept. Therefore, they shifted focus to see if there were
enough existing independently owned golf courses within the state that would be willing
to form a consortium and market themselves collectively rather than individually.
Coincidentally, there happened to be several mid to high-end market golf courses under
construction and opening in that period of time, and in 2001, six of these courses formed
the first version of the Audubon Golf Trail. The Trail has since grown to nine facilities.
When the Trail was first established, golf in the state was mainly a mix of private courses
in major metropolitan areas and lower-end municipal courses. There was little in the way
of mid-market resort type public facilities that would cater to tourist traffic seeking a
more substantial golf experience. In 1999, Golf Digest magazine ranked Louisiana 48th in
the USA in public accessible golf courses per capita, ahead of only Alaska and Delaware.
There was an obvious lack of awareness outside the State of the quality and types of golf
courses that were in existence.

Funding
Each participating golf course pays a modest fee of $1,000 per year to belong to the Trail.
Funding for the marketing comes directly from the State of Louisiana Department of
Culture, Recreation, and Tourism. Literature provided by the AGT Administrator
indicated that their marketing budget for fiscal 2004-2005 will be $825K.
At this point, there are no other partners in the AGT other than the nine golf courses.
Their literature does make reference to a total golf and holiday experience in Louisiana
encompassing restaurants, gaming, the enjoyment of their State park experience with an
emphasis on wildlife and natural beauty, but at this point, there are no direct funding
contributions from entities such as hotel chains or casinos into their marketing budget.

Trickle Down Effects
Mr. Kaspar, Administrator for the AGT, reports that in every case, there has been
significant evidence of private enterprise development and growth in close proximity to
virtually every member course of the AGT. This infrastructure includes motels, gas
stations and convenience stores, residential housing developments and shopping. In
fairness, it may be difficult to quantify how much development would have taken place
had the AGT not been developed per se, because these were golf courses that were under
construction or on the drawing boards when the AGT was formed in 2001 anyway, but
there is no question that the profile and cachet surrounding each participating course has
been raised substantially by their recognition as an AGT member.
Mr. Kaspar was unable to provide information as to whether or not any local municipalities or civic governments had provided any tax relief or concessions to any developer who had built a participating golf course, but he didn’t think there had been any such concessions.

FLATHEAD VALLEY GOLF ASSOCIATION
Kalispell, MT
Website: http://www.golfmontana.net

Background:
The Flathead Valley Golf Association comprises a collection of nine independently owned and operated golf courses within the State of Montana. These courses are situated in the western part of Montana in and around Glacier National Park and surrounding Flathead Lake, This is a major recreation destination for not only golf, but skiing, hiking,camping, boating and fishing.
The Association was founded in 1985 under the leadership and direction of Mr, Peter Tracey, the owner of Meadow Lake Golf Club in Columbia Falls, MT. Prior to the mid-1980’s, resort and public golf in Montana consisted primarily of individually owned golf properties that largely catered to state residents. Each course did what they could afford for marketing, but given the relatively short playing season and somewhat fractured marketplace at that time and uncoordinated marketing efforts, advertising was on somewhat of a hit and miss basis and tended to have a more local focus and audience.
Mr. Tracey’s vision was to promote the golf courses and resorts in the area as a destination rather than have each course fight for market share without the resources available to undertake a coordinated, well thought out marketing plan. With the larger budget available from pooling their collective resources, he felt that they would be able to develop a much more effective means of not only attracting visitors to the area from neighboring Canadian provinces such as Alberta and British Columbia, but also to create increased awareness within the State for what up to that point in time had been “hidden gems” with little awareness outside the immediate area.

Funding
Participation in the Flathead Valley Golf Assn. is open to any golf course or hotel
accommodator in the area. Each partner contributes an equal share to the overall budget;
there is not a different level of contribution for golf courses with more or less than 18
holes, or for differing types or sizes of hotels. There is no direct, sustained contribution to the funding process by Tourism Montana or any other level of state or municipal
government, although there have been cases where Tourism Montana has helped with individual initiatives, but not on a specified, formulaic basis.

Trickle Down Effects
There area some isolated instances where the increased tourist traffic generated by the
growth of the golf industry has led to the creation or upgrading of hotel and food service
businesses. For example, the construction of the 27-hole Eagle Bend Golf Resort in Bigfork, MT led directly to the construction of two motor inns in that community, but it is arguable as to whether this development was attributable to the efforts of the golf course consortium or as to whether these businesses would have been started had Eagle Bend remained outside the marketing group.
Overall, the research has not indicated that there has been any substantial growth of non-golf related business directly as a result of their forming a marketing consortium.

Media and Advertising
Each golf course and hotel partner is represented on a Board of Directors which meets
quarterly. The Board has hired a full-time marketing agency in Whitefish MT, LJ
Communications, to handle the overall marketing direction and coordination. Their core
market of potential customers is the Pacific Northwest into Canada, with Alberta being a
major market, especially for early season spring play when courses here are not quite ready to open.
The Flathead Valley Assn. does very little in the way of print advertising. They do four
trade shows per year, including one in Calgary. One of their big success stories has been
the development of “Fam Tours” for visiting golf publication writers. They have been featured in Golfweek Magazine and Golf Magazine over the past two years, and the Head Professional at Eagle Bend GC reports that the sales generated from these articles was very substantial and far in excess of any direct print or TV advertising that their group ever did. Michael Wynne, Head Professional at Eagle Bend GC, said “The tours for the visiting golf writers have been incredibly successful for us. When we were featured in Golfweek Magazine last year, the phone just didn’t stop ringing.”

The Internet
Customers using the Internet have two choices for making golf reservations. They can
link directly to the golf course’s site for general information, but cannot get direct access
to the tee sheet to book reservations. They must either phone the golf course on their own toll-free or toll number, or use the consortium’s toll-free central reservation number
for complete hotel and golf packages. The consortium does not utilize the services of an
on-line tee time booking service.
Each participating course has its own website but local hotels do not. All the golf courses
have links to their individual websites from the Home Page, and the hotels are listed with
their phone numbers and addresses. The hotels can reserve blocks of tee times for their
guests’ use, and these tee times are in some cases sold to wholesalers who take a
percentage of the hotel’s portion of the revenue when they are sold.

Convention and Visitors’ Authorities
The attraction of conventions and meetings does not play a large role in this consortium’s
plans. The Flathead CVB (Kalispell) and the Whitefish CVB do have information on
hand about the consortium, but Rhonda Fitzgerald, President of the Flathead CVB says
that the area does not have facilities for any large scale conventions that would have a
significant impact on the spin-off business that would accrue to the golf courses. They
DO make anyone inquiring about hosting a meeting or convention in their area aware of
the golfing opportunities, but the existence of the Association is not a significant
determinant in decisions to hold meetings and conventions in the Kalispell or Whitefish
communities.
The CVB’s do not receive any compensation or contributions from the Association in any
way.
There is a 3-tier state hotel tax that helps fund consortium initiatives. The state is divided
into regions and each region receives a portion of an overall 9% hotel tax. Of this overall
total, 3% goes to the state, 2% to the city or municipality in which the tax is collected,
and a further 4% goes to the overall budget for the particular region. Each region has a
board that allocates their budget to tourism promotion as a whole, whether this is for
skiing, golf, outdoor activities such as hunting or mountaineering, or other tourism
activities. In short, the golf consortium does receive tourism funding from this tax, but
not necessarily in direct proportion to the revenue they create by visitors coming
specifically for golf.

Best Practices
The hiring of a professional marketing agency appears to have paid good dividends for
this group, rather than have the golf course and hotel partners make media and
advertising decisions on their own. Consensus among interviewed partners was that the
agency was doing a very good job.
Their focus on the creation of “Fam Tours” for visiting media has been very successful in
attracting visitors from a wider area than they may have been able to reach with paid
advertising initiatives. The consortium’s website itself was functional, if not spectacular,
providing all the necessary information but without much fanfare.

PINEHURST, NORTH CAROLINA
Southern Pines, NC
Websites: http://www.homeofgolf.com http://www.sandhillsgolf.com

Background:
The Pinehurst, North Carolina area is one of the oldest, most prestigious golf destinations
in the United States. The first golf course was built in Pinehurst in 1899 by the legendary
golf architect Donald Ross and the area is synonymous with his name. The Pinehurst
Resort itself has 8 outstanding courses within the complex, featuring the world famous
Pinehurst #2 Course designed by Donald Ross, generally regarded as one of the Top Ten
golf courses in the world. Courses such as Pinehurst # 2 and Pine Needles have hosted
many major championships and Pinehurst #2 will host the 2005 US Men’s Open
Championship.
The Pinehurst, Southern Pines, and Aberdeen area is generally recognized and best
known merely as “Pinehurst”. The area is approximately halfway between New York and
Florida, and halfway between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. There
are 43 golf courses within a 15-mile radius, which is the highest concentration of golf
holes/permanent resident in the United States. The overall marketing for the area is
handled through the Pinehurst Convention & Visitors Bureau (PCVB), although several
of the golf courses have formed their own 17 member course consortium under the
banner of the Sandhills Golf Association (SGA). Other courses such as the Pinehurst
Resort itself have their own stand alone marketing budgets.
The majority of the golf course construction boom has taken place in the past twenty
years. The Pinehurst CVB was not formed until fifteen years ago as a response to the
growing need to better market the area regionally and nationally. Prior to the early 1980s,
golf in the area consisted primarily of the Pinehurst Resort, which at that time only had
five courses. The tradition and long history of golf in the area has enabled them to create
a unique brand trademarked as the “Home of American Golf”. Much of their marketing
efforts reinforce this image of their heritage and turn of the century architecture and style.

Funding
Tourism as a whole within the Pinehurst / Aberdeen / Southern Pines area is funded by a
3% hotel tax that is rolled back by the State of North Carolina to the area to promote
tourism. This includes historical attractions, museums, and the like, but the majority of
the budget is used to promote golf. The courses themselves are not built or administered
by the State, but by private enterprise.
The SGA member golf courses contribute equally to their marketing budget which is
administered under the guidance of a Director of Operations.

Trickle Down Effects
Virtually the entire economic growth in the Pinehurst area over the past twenty years can
be traced to the development and expansion of the golf industry. Shopping, medical
facilities, schools, residential and vacation home construction and support infrastructure
have all been developed as a direct result of the boom in new golf courses and tourist
traffic throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Even in the post 9/11 era, new courses continue
to be started. The local municipalities all recognize the importance of the golf industry to
their area, and are fully supportive of the marketing efforts of the PCVB.
The PCVB has created and administers a distinct and unique brand incorporating not only
the world class golf courses, but the tradition and quality of the area’s hospitality. They
appear to be working in harmony with hundreds of hospitality-based businesses and stake
holders to help distinguish the area from all other competing travel, recreational and
meeting destinations. They are making a conscious effort to build sustainable tourism
over a long period of time with emphasis on preserving the area’s authenticity and natural
beauty. But they also have recognized that tourism has its limits and that unchecked
growth can create unmanageable burdens on the infrastructure.

Media and Advertising
The PCVB media buys include major national golf publications such as Golf Digest to
target their major customer, the avid male golfer 40 and over. Recognizing the growth of
women’s golf, they also purchase space in lifestyle magazines catering to women,
primarily in the US Southeast. They so some TV spots, with a somewhat unsuccessful
venture into “per inquiry TV” utilizing remnant space largely on fringe TV channels not
necessarily with a viewership demographic that they would normally target. The
marketing efforts of the SGA are generally more regional in scope, primarily in the North
Carolina and eastern seaboard markets.
Neither group makes use of an outside marketing or media buying agency for ad buy
recommendations, nor does there appear to be specific measurements in place to assess
the effectiveness of any one particular media investment.

The Internet
The PCVB site does not actually have any one “Call to Action” toll-free phone number or
web link to make one-stop purchases of golf packages or to reserve tee times. There are
links to enable a visitor to create their own golf holiday, or eventually get into the website
of a particular accommodation provider to inquire about shoulder season specials, but the
process is cumbersome. The PCVB says that with the wide variety of price points
available within their membership, it is virtually impossible to create packaging with one
price point, nor do they see their role as being the fulfillment center to do the booking and
reservations.
The 17 courses under the banner of the SGA are all relatively similar types of courses.
Their website does have a “Golf Packages” section with time sensitive seasonal price
points that are valid at any of the participating golf courses. They also have an on-line
“booking” system which is really just an email inquiry about a range of times that may be
available at any of several courses and still requires a person within the SHGA to make
phone calls to check on tee time availability.

Convention and Visitors Authorities
It would be self-evident to say that the PCVB works closely with the local Convention
and Visitors Bureau, as they ARE the local Convention and Visitors Bureau! They are
unable to attract major conventions because of a lack of a suitable convention center in
the area and the lack good airline connections direct to Pinehurst, but they are able to sell
substantial meeting space for groups of up to approximately 200 people.
The nearest major airport is in Raleigh, NC, about 60 miles away, although there is a
local airport able to handle smaller commuter and private airplanes. Their experience has
been that post-9/11; visitors are much more likely to drive to the area from a longer
distance so they have not seen a negative impact on their visitor numbers.

Best Practices
The Pinehurst area has done an excellent job of promoting their area’s history and unique
sense of place and style. They are not in the “growth for growth’s sake” business, as they
seem to recognize that their major target customer is willing to pay a little more for the
experience and enjoyment of their area’s history and other attractions. Their customer is
college educated, professional, a high earner and an avid golfer. They do provide good
information in their website; you just have to take your time to find it.
The SGA group is more concerned with selling their own product rather than the area as a
whole, but that is understandable given their respective mandates. They have made good
use of leveraging the area’s reputation as a premier golf destination, with a little more
aggressive approach than the PCVB to generating sales.

MYRTLE BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINA
Myrtle Beach, SC
Websites: http://www.golfholiday.com http://www.myrtlebeachinfo.com

Background:
The Myrtle Beach, South Carolina area is one of the best known and most popular golf
destinations in the world. It consists of a collection of about 120 golf courses along with
hotels, motels and tourist support infrastructure located along an approximately 60 mile
long stretch along the Atlantic Ocean that has come to be known as The Grand Strand.
No one “founded” Myrtle Beach per se, or the collection of golf courses that now market
themselves as a vacation destination. The first golf course was built in 1927, but even as
recently at the late 1960s there were only 7 golf courses in the entire area. The major
growth in the number of courses has been in the past 25 years.
The beaches there are among the best in the world, and in the summer months, beach
traffic surpasses golf by far in terms of the number of visitors. A total of approximately
14 million visitors will travel to the area in 2004. In fact, the development of the golf
industry there was more of a result of hotel operators and investors seeking ways to
expand the “season” into spring and fall to generate traffic to fill hotel rooms. They were
already packed to capacity in the summers from beach traffic, but needed ways to
generate visitors to fill hotel beds in the March-May and Sept-November shoulder
seasons. The biggest boom in golf course construction came from the late 1980’s
through the 1990s and has now leveled off as supply caught up to demand,, combined
with factors such as an overall economic downturn in the USA post- 9/11. Only three
new courses are under construction in the Grand Strand at this point.
Marketing of the Myrtle Beach area as a destination falls to two bodies that while under
separate administration, work very closely together. Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday is a non-profit
organization which is the official body for promoting golf and golf packages in the area. There are also a number of private enterprise, for-profit tour operators and golf
packagers competing for market share, but MBGH is by far the largest and most widely
recognized group providing these services.
The Myrtle Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau works parallel to the MB Chamber of
Commerce. They handle the convention and meeting business for the area, as well as the
marketing for beach visitors. The MBGH people do all the marketing for golf.

Funding
MBGH has an annual budget of approximately $8 Million. The three major sources of
funding for this budget are fees collected from various tournaments that they promote
throughout the year ($2.5M), consortium member dues ($3.8M), and contributions from
the State of South Carolina Tourism Board $1.2M). They have just over 100 golf courses
who contribute $27K per course per 18 holes, and hotel/motel partners pay from $10K to
$20K bases on a sliding scale geared to the number of beds they have. The State Tourism
contribution comes from the collection of a 5% accommodation tax, of which 70% is
spent on general tourism marketing and 30% for golf-specific initiatives.

Trickle Down Effect
In an interview, Mr.Mickey McCamish, President of MBGH, said that the golf industry
has a total economic impact on South Carolina of approximately $800 Million, exclusive
of the golf and hotel industries themselves. This includes such support industries as
restaurants, shopping, bars, car rental agencies, airport fees, gas stations, and other
support infrastructure, and employs about 10,000 people. In an area only about 60 miles
long, this is a significant amount of economic impact.
The golf boom of the 80s and 90s created a surge of construction and increase in the
number of visitors to the MB area, many of whom were the “boomer” generation. As this
demographic is now entering retirement, the area has seen a tremendous increase in the
construction of new homes, with the growth of new home construction in the MB area
now #2 in the US, behind only Las Vegas. As the number of permanent residents
increases over the next 10-20 years, there is already evidence of support infrastructure
growth in medical care, shopping and professional service needs.

Media and Advertising
Myrtle Beach has created a distinct brand for their area. In fact, they have trademarked
the phrase, “Where the World Goes to Golf”, and their literature, website, and TV
marketing all make pointed and frequent reference to the fact that they are the worlds #1
golf destination in terms of numbers of visitors and rounds played. They offer a wide
variety of price points in both golf and accommodation suitable for pretty much anyone’s
budget.
They use a wide variety of media, incorporating national and regional magazines, TV,
newspapers, and direct mail pieces from their data base. Courses participating in the
MBGH consortium are still free to do their own stand-alone marketing, and several of the
higher-end properties do just such that. Their major target market is the eastern half of
the US, with particular emphasis into the northeast Boston to Washington metroplex.
Their Canadian marketing has been in the past mostly in the Ontario and Quebec areas.
The MBCVB have their own Marketing Department and MBGH hires an outside
advertising and media buying agency to assist them in making media decisions. Followup
and handling of incoming inquiries is handled by fulfillment officers under the
umbrella of MBGH.

The Internet
The MBHG site is well organized, with a different area course being featured daily, along
with easy to navigate sections for accommodations, tournaments, seasonal price specials,
and contests. They have a section called “e-savers” where direct emails can be sent to
you offering last minute price specials and another unique section where you can email in
an unusual Myrtle Beach golf story in a contest to win a new driver. These are of course
all methods used to increase their data base for direct mail marketing.
The MBGH group makes extensive use of wholesalers who negotiate discounted rates for
golf and package these tee times through local hotel partners. They are not prepurchased,
but merely to provide preferential tee times to visitors staying at consortium
hotel partners.
Site visitors are encourages to make use of the Myrtle Beach Golf Planner to research a
hotel/golf package within their own budget prior to calling the toll-free phone number to
actually book room and tee time reservations. With the wide variety of price points
available in both hotels and golf courses, this methodology works better than attempting
to provide one-stop shopping with one pre-determined price point. The MBGH site
provides thumbnail sketches of participating golf courses with links to the golf course’s
home page for more detailed descriptions.

Convention and Visitors’ Authorities
The relationship between the golf/hotel providers in Myrtle Beach (MBGH) and the
MBCVB is as close and efficient as any examined in this study. The two groups work
very closely together in providing information to prospective convention organizers, and
in their situation, the variety of quality of the golf courses is the main reason why many
convention planners choose the Myrtle Beach for their meetings in the first place. Their
convention business tends to be in the peak golf seasons of spring and fall rather than
summers when hotel occupancy is high and room rates are at their most expensive. The
meeting groups tend to be smaller in nature, which is partly a function of lack of direct air
service from major centers that would tend to be major corporation headquarters.
This may be changing though, as the MBGH people have been working very hard with
area air carriers to provide more flights, better connections and new routes into their
airport. A new relationship with Northwest Airlines out of Minneapolis has just been
established, for example, which now provides direct flights from that location into Myrtle
Beach, enhancing their marketing capabilities in the Midwest.

Best Practices
The relationship between the hotels and golf courses here is excellent. Golf is the main
economic generator in spring and fall, and certainly very important in attracting business
development, residential housing starts, and tourism in general. They have developed and
promoted several major amateur tournaments to build business in off-peak periods such
as the World Amateur Championship which was started 21 years ago and now annually
attracts over 4,000 golfers in a one-week period in late August that was traditionally one
of the slowest weeks of the year. Portions of these tournament fees also provide
approximately $2.5Million in revenue for MBGH promotion and marketing.
Another unique marketing vehicle is the preparation and awarding of a complimentary
Hole-in-One Plaque to every player who makes an ace on a Grand Strand golf course
(about 800 per year). These attractive plaques are couriered to the golfer at his home, and
you can be sure they hang proudly in offices and dens all over the country helping to
build good word-of-mouth and cachet for the group.
But more than anything, their brand has been built over the past forty years to make the
Myrtle Beach area the #1 choice as a golf destination in their prime target market. They
have the variety of golf courses, great climate, and central location on the eastern
seaboard to make their area very attractive. By treating golfers as their bread and butter
and catering to their needs at the level they do, they have been extremely successful.

ROBERT TRENT JONES GOLF TRAIL
Birmingham, AL
Website: http://www.rtjgolf.com

Background:
The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in situated entirely within the State of Alabama. It is
in many ways a unique golf course project, and has been one of the most successful golf
course consortiums ever put together.
The Trail was conceived and founded in the late 1980’s by Dr. David Bronner, the CEO
of the Retirement Systems of Alabama, the state teachers’ pension fund. Dr. Bronner’s
vision was to create a state-wide series of championship golf courses that would be the
catalyst for tourism, job creation, and economic development for generations to come.
The Trail initially was comprised of seven sites throughout the state with a total of 324
holes (18 courses), and since that initial phase of construction, there have been another 54
holes open at one additional site, with three more courses currently under construction at
two additional locations. When construction is complete on these two new locations, the
Trail will comprise 24 golf courses at 10 sites throughout the state.
Alabama has been in the past, and continues to be, one of the more economically
disadvantaged States in the USA. Their unemployment rate was higher than the national
average and their average family income below national standards. Dr. Bonner’s vision
was to create the collection of golf courses, owned and operated by the Retirement
Systems of Alabama (RSA) that would act as a catalyst for job creation and generate a
wealth of new interest in the State of Alabama as a tourist destination centered on golf
courses and supporting infrastructure.
Prior to the creation of the RTJ Golf Trail, golf in Alabama was a mixture of private
clubs mainly in Birmingham and Montgomery, and public courses catering primarily to
local traffic in the lower and mid-market range. Some interest in the Gulf Shores area
near Mobile was in evidence as a golf destination but was also largely driven by the
area’s attraction as a beach and water recreation area. Tourists largely either passed
through Alabama on their way to other locations such as Florida or New Orleans, or their
stays were centered on college football in the fall.

Funding
The marketing budget for the RTJ Trail comes out of general revenue streams and profits.
Because the courses are all owned and operated by the RSA, there is not a contribution
per se from each site. The State of Alabama does not contribute directly to the marketing
budget, but there was a substantial contribution from both State and private industry in
the creation of the Trail in the first place. All the land for the courses was either state-owned
public land or owned by private corporations and made available to the Trail at no
cost. For example, the site in Birmingham was originally an open-pit iron ore mine
owned by US Steel, but as the mine had been tapped, and US Steel’s operations in
Birmingham curtailed, RSA secured the site for no cash outlay.
This land acquisition methodology used by RSA gives them some clear advantages over
other groups of golf courses that might be carrying substantial debt for land acquisition as
a part of their overall debt load.

Trickle Down Effects
In every location where the RTJ Trail sites have been built, there has been clear evidence
of private-industry development in close proximity to the golf courses in the way of
hotels, restaurants, shopping, theaters, etc. Barbara Thomas, Vice-President of Marketing
for RSA, was quoted as saying that prior to the opening of the first Trail courses in 1992,
the overall tourism industry in Alabama was a $1.8B(USD) industry. In 2004, that total
is expected to reach $6.8B (USD), and even after allowance for inflation, this increase of
nearly 300% in an otherwise economically disadvantaged area can be directly attributed
to the success of the RTJ Trail as a tourism traffic generator. Every state in the US South
had a decrease in tourism in 2003 with the exception of Alabama.
Russell Redford, CEO of Sunbelt Golf, the management arm that operates the Trail, says
that having the Trail in the State was a major influence in the State’s ability to attract
major investment from the likes of Daimler Chrysler, Honda, and Mitsubishi as amenities
available to the highly paid factory workers and administrators.

Media and Advertising
The core market for visitors is the US Midwest centered on the Interstate 65 corridor
north to the Chicago area. One other advantage that the trail enjoys is the vertically integrated
relationship with a chain of 40 TV stations owned by RSA under the Raycom
Television Network banner and a chain of 200 newspapers also owned by RSA.
Advertisements promoting the Trail are placed on Raycom and through the newspapers
for “in-kind” costs and do not necessitate a cash outlay.
Some national magazine advertising is done through publications such as Golf Digest.
Direct mail pieces are sent to customers on the Trail’s mailing list. National media have
been very friendly to the Trail, and their word of mouth advertising is excellent, fueled in
part by a solid product and well above average personal service at the sites. Marketing
decisions and media buys are handled within their in-house marketing committee.
When the Trail was first opened in the early 1990s, there were no hotels on-site at the
courses that were owned by RSA. Visitors could purchase a “Trail Card” type of passport
that for one fee of approximately $200 entitled the purchaser to play one round at EACH
of the golf courses on the trail. The purpose was to stimulate travel between sites and
getting visitors moving throughout the State. Accommodations were handled by
independently owned hotels and motels that were either in existence or were built within
close proximity to the golf courses.
In 1995-96, RSA made a conscious decision to get into the golf packaging business,
partly so that they could generate additional profits at lodgings that they would own and
operate, and partly so that they could better control the entire experience a visitor would
enjoy on the Trail. The Trail Card passport has been scrapped and replaced by another
type of discount card that entitles state residents some discounts on green fees during
shoulder hours and seasons. The goal is to have out of state guests paying full retail for
their Trail golf and lodging. Four of the sites now have hotels and conference centers on
site at the golf complexes with the marketing emphasis now more centered on Stay and
Play packages rather than have every visitor play several of the courses with the attendant
travel requirements.

Internet
Their website provides direct links to each of the individual sites, but visitors do not have
direct access to the tee sheets at the individual courses. Tee times must be booked
through their toll-free phone number or via email. From what could be determined from
the research, the Trail does not sell bulk blocks of tee times to wholesalers or travel
agents, but they do maintain close relationships with this segment of the industry.
The RSA does not sell banner ads or generate additional revenue streams from their
website.

Convention and Visitor’s Authorities
With the growth of accommodations on-site at more of the golf courses, administrators
are becoming more proactive in trying to generate meeting and convention business that
would be centered at their own hotels. The CVB’s at major cities such as Birmingham or
Montgomery make good use of the availability of the Trail courses in their areas as key
selling points in their packaging to conventions and meetings coming to their cities.

Best Practices
The RTJ Golf Trail was one of the first of its type in North America and they have had
about 12 years now to fine tune their operations. They enjoy some significant advantages
over similar consortiums such as not having had to incur debt to purchase land for their
facilities, and they have developed a very effective marketing program with the budgets
that they have at their disposal.
Their 24-page brochure and sales piece gives any reader a very good flavor for what type
of facilities are available on the Trail. The Website is good, but I thought they could
have perhaps made better use of flash graphics and would have had better pictures of
their golf courses on the site. My on-site visits to four of their eight locations gave me the
sense that they have a very consistent approach to hospitality once you have arrived at
any of their courses. The service and systems in place to handle guest traffic were
excellent.

Rates were very reasonable given the quality of the overall experience, and the two onsite
hotels and conference centers that I saw were first rate. They have had the flexibility
within their marketing plans to shift focus as well, moving from the idea of getting guests
to travel throughout the state to a system where they controlled more of the
accommodations and encouraged guests to stay in one location and play the courses
several times rather than drive from site to site.

Next month we will post the data from The Bear Trace, Texas - Desert Links - Okanagan, Kootenay Rockies - Kimberly and SWING Ireland.

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