– Pricing
– Digital Marketing
– Reporting
Find out more about how we operate, and get some ideas on what you can do to increase the sales at your club by operating more effectively online.
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UK & Irish Golf Market Records Month of Visitor Revenue
After a relatively wet summer, August delivered an exceptional month of visitor sales that was the third largest ever recorded in the UK and Ireland, only just short of the post-lockdown months of June and July 2020.
This was comfortably the biggest month of the year in casual green fee revenue, growing by 17% on July to a total of £25,697 at the average golf club that operates with business growth agency, The Revenue Club. The sample size of 200 clubs and £6.7m in visitor revenue showed an increase of 28% on last August, the largest month of growth in 2024 with demand for tee times the highest it has been in over four years.
This exceptional level of revenue for the UK and Irish market has taken the year-to-date growth to 13% with the average club registering £126,832 in visitor green fee sales for far in 2024. The drier weather coincided with the main holiday period to deliver ideal trading conditions for golf courses to benefit from remarkable levels of demand that illustrate the healthiness of the industry.
The trend of growth in online sales was the main catalyst of the increase as 69% of all visitor revenue came through online booking engines – a 39% uplift on August 2023. Phone and walk in bookings also grew, but at a lower level of 11%.
‘It is incredibly exciting to see this level of growth in the industry with golf clubs enjoying levels of visitor demand that we’ve not witnessed in over four years.’ Said Rob Corcoran, Director at The Revenue Club. ‘It illustrates the importance of visitor green fees as a vital ingredient of the business mix, and the potential that can be achieved with focussed marketing and dynamic pricing structures.’
Much of the uplift in revenue in 2024 has been attributed to a general rise in prices, but the YOY growth of the average green fee in August was smaller, increasing by only 4% to £27.53 per person. This led to a 3% rise in the average sale price to £59.09 per person
A key indicator of the increase in demand is the uplift in web traffic to golf course booking engines that was up to 1,974 users at the average club in August – the highest since summer 2020 and 11% more than the same month last year. Conversion of this traffic to bookings remained steady at 13% that showed golfers’ eagerness to play in the latter part of the summer season.
With such high levels of demand, there is an excellent opportunity for golf clubs to capitalise on the popularity of the sport in the autumn to deliver another excellent year of growth. As the days shorten, the continuation of this momentum will be subject to the weather conditions that were favourable last September and can produce excellent results late in the season for clubs that maintain focus on their visitor strategy.
The Revenue Club poised to take on The Longest Day Challenge
Eleven brave golfers from the growth marketing agency for UK and Irish golf clubs are about to embark on an epic 72 hole challenge in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. Despite a broad variety of fitness levels, the team will aim to complete four rounds together in a single day with the objective of avoiding injury and raising £1,000 for the charity.
The event has close personal relevance for company director, Chris Knight who was diagnosed with stage three bowel cancer in September last year. The seriousness of his condition led to a three month course of chemotherapy at Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, before undergoing surgery at the Countess of Chester Hospital in March.
‘At the age of 38, the discovery of developed tumours by the medical team was a terrifying prospect, but thankfully they were found just in time and treatment and removal was possible. The care I received from the NHS staff was incredible, and the initial signs are very positive for a full recovery.’ Said Chris who will be in sufficient health to take on the challenge himself following a quick recuperation period.
Travelling from all four corners of the UK, it is a three-line whip for the eager employees who will be playing at the central location of Ansty Golf Centre, near Coventry, supported by one of the UK’s biggest golf operators, Get Golfing on 11th July 2024.
‘We are delighted to do all we can in support of Chris and the team in their fundraising efforts over the coming month. The Revenue Club is a close partner of ours and they play a vital role in our day to day operations. It is an impressive test of golfing endurance for a fantastic cause, and we are so pleased to see Chris back on his feet and fully involved.’ Said Dan Lucking the Sales Director at Get Golfing.
The charity supports those suffering with cancer across the UK and anyone wishing to donate to the campaign can do so via The Revenue Club’s fundraising page.
UK & Ireland Visitor Golf Market Overview 2023
At a Glance
- 2023 was a record year for visitor revenue with the average club generating £163,952 in green fee sales.
- This represents growth of 8% on 2022 and is the fourth consecutive year of growth for the industry.
- A rise of 5% in the average green fee to £26.80 has contributed to the growth.
- Demand for online bookings continued to increase with a 7% uplift in web traffic.
The Revenue Club has reported another excellent year of growth for the UK and Ireland golf industry with visitor revenue increasing to a record high. The average club generated £163,952 in casual green fee income over the course of the year that was made up of 65% online bookings and 35% from offline revenue (phone and walk in sales). The overall total represents an 8% increase on 2022 with online sales driving the greatest proportion of the growth, adding an extra £10,196 to the average total as more golfers elected to book their rounds online.
There was an 8% drop in member play which took effect early in the year that was possibly due to the cost of living crisis, and this opened up additional course capacity. Coupled with a dry February, this led to an excellent first quarter for visitor sales that set clubs up well for the remainder of the year. Although prolonged periods of good weather were confined to the months of May and September, the changeable conditions did not appear to dampen the enthusiasm of golfers to get on the course. Over the course of the summer high levels of play were sustained despite the unpredictable conditions, before dropping sharply in November and December as wet weather prevailed.
One of the main contributing factors to the growth was the uplift in average green fee which reached its highest annual level of £26.80 per person, a 5% increase on 2022. There was a slight drop in the average group size to 2.16 so the rise in the average rate did not quite translate to the same growth in average sale price which was up by 3% to £58.16 per booking.
A clear indication that buying patterns and demand continues to evolve is the growth in volume of web traffic to golf club booking engines. The average club had 15,438 users shopping on their online tee sheets in the last 12 months which is 7% up on the previous year. Encouragingly, this traffic converted to bookings at the same rate of 10% which shows that golfers were not put off by the higher rates that were on sale.
Director at The Revenue Club, Rob Corcoran said, ‘The outlook for 2024 is very encouraging as green fee revenue growth has progressed steadily through the year with increases of 17% and 33% in November and December respectively, despite the poor weather. Supported by the uplift in demand and the gradual rise in prices, proactive operators can look forward to a fifth consecutive year of growth in this area of their business. Continued focus on online sales and rapidly developing digital marketing channels will once again be the key to realising this potential by adapting to the playing and working patterns of UK and Irish golfers.’
The Revenue Club operates with 175 golf courses throughout the UK and Ireland, helping them to generate additional revenue through their online channels through dynamic pricing, digital marketing and CRM services. Their reporting suite REPORTS.GOLF recorded £38m in visitor sales in 2023, making it the biggest collection of visitor golf data available to the UK and Ireland golfing markets.
WFH presents new revenue opportunities for golf clubs
A recent study of 1.3m visitor rounds has shown that visiting golfers are now more likely to play in the afternoon than then morning. Using data from The Revenue Club’s reporting suite, REPORTS.GOLF, the recent trend has highlighted new revenue opportunities for golf clubs in what are traditionally quiet times.
The change is thought to have been brought about by the greater proportion of golfers that are working from home and using their flexible working arrangements to get out on the course more. There is also a notably higher proportion of play during the week than at weekends.
The flexible approach employed by The Revenue Club has allowed golf clubs to adapt to this trend and supplement membership fees with additional online visitor revenue as the market has evolved. Participation has remained high in recent years, and with the widely reported drop in membership revenue in 2023, there has been a subsequent increase in green fee income that has enabled courses to continue to grow their revenue, despite the cost of living crisis.
Read the full article here.
Social Media Developments
As you will already be aware Facebook and Instagram regularly change the content they would like to show audiences, from test-based content, photographs, videos, stories, reels… these platforms push different aspects of their service to certain users, ultimately these platforms are trying to keep users on them for as long as possible and get them engaged.
With that in mind, here at The Revenue Club we are updating the way that we use social media on behalf of our partner clubs. We have always focussed on driving web traffic to a golf clubs booking engine in order to convert the lookers into bookers. This is still at the forefront of our thinking, and this new era will help local golfers keep our partner clubs front of mind when booking their next tee time.
There is not just one strategy that works on its own and the combination of all of these approaches will increase how effective a golf clubs social media is, these strategies are as follows:
- ‘Moving’ Content – This is video lead content, which is known to perform better than a static image on social platforms. These pieces can then be pushed on to Facebook and Instagrams Reel feature, one that Meta are heavily encouraging their users to use. This content will be simple videos that showcases various aspects of a golf club such as the clubhouse, the course, or simply a great review.
- Social Media Facelift – This is where we conduct a tidying up exercise and facelift of a golf club’s social media profiles. This will make the information that the customers want to see easier to find, whilst also making the profile seem more professional. This will include any branding a golf club currently has on its website, so the social media page seems like a branch of the golf club’s website, instead of its own entity.
- Engagement lead content – This approach is one that does not promote/commercialise a golf clubs green fee offers or any part of the business, but instead drives your audience to comment, discuss and engage with the content. The testing we undertook revealed a 45% increase of engagement in comparison to link/URL based content, this means more people are commenting, liking, and sharing the post.
- Paid Content – With a small budget Facebook/Instagram will then push a post right to the top of users that are most likely to interact with your content, it will also push this to users that have never engaged with your posts but have a great love of golf and are in your local area. This small investment dramatically improves the reach for your golf club.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, and with the ever changing landscape of social media we will continue to adapt how we use these platforms to help promote our partner golf clubs.
UK & Ireland Golf Industry Annual Report 2022
The Revenue Club has released its annual report on visitor revenue, detailing the sales trends from 140 clubs that generated £22m in green fee sales across the UK and Ireland in 2022.
In the first full year since 2019 that has been unaffected by Covid restrictions, the level of visitor green fee revenue at the average UK and Ireland golf club reduced by 2% to £158,688.
Although the market was well ahead of 2021 at the beginning of April due to the enforced closures in the previous year, the head start that had been achieved in the first quarter had been considerably reduced by the end of May. In the peak months of June to August, sales were at similarly high levels as summer 2021 which was assisted by the exceptionally hot weather and record temperatures. Then, as the days shortened in the autumn, sales reduced at a faster rate than the previous year and were considerably lower in the wet and cold months of November and December.
One key area of the visitor green fee market that continues to grow is direct website sales which were up by 2% at the average golf club to £95,161 which represents 61% of green fee sales. Offline sales remained steady at 32% of the green fee mix, and there was a 33% reduction in the volume of revenue from brokers.
Encouragingly, there was an 11% increase in the average green fee across the UK and Ireland to £24.73. Where the majority of courses have been keen to increase prices to cover higher costs, it is possible that the more expensive rates and inflationary pressures on consumers are a contributing factor to the drop in overall revenue.
An area that illustrates the reduction in demand is the web traffic on booking engines which was down by 4% over the course of the year. The conversion of this web traffic to bookings remained the same at 11% which suggests that the higher prices were not off putting to golfers, but that there was a lower number of people playing the game.
As part of the ongoing partnership with Sporting Insights, the figures will be fed into their industry report to add a greater level of market intelligence for golf course operators.
“Sporting Insights are delighted to be a partner of The Revenue Club and this valuable data provides a great insight into how clubs throughout the country have fared in 2022. We look forward to combining this information with our wider macro industry figures to continue to monitor the state of golf in 2023.” Said Richard Payne, Director at Sporting Insights.
Looking ahead, Director at The Revenue Club Rob Corcoran has said “The coming year presents additional challenges with the existing pattern of winter sales currently operating at a lower level than the start of 2022 suggesting there could be a further reduction in the short term.”
“The cost of living crisis may lead to a drop in the amount golfers are prepared to spend on playing this year, or it could lead to a shift in the way they pay for their golf with more individuals electing to revert to nomadic playing patterns following the membership boom of the last two to three years. Golf clubs will need to be agile to react to the probable changes to ensure they are well positioned to make the most of the demand, and the likelihood that golfers are likely to be even more savvy with how they spend their money in 2023.”
Sports Marketing Surveys and The Revenue Club collaborate on first report
Sports Marketing Surveys (SMS) and The Revenue Club’s new collaboration is underway with the launch of the first quarterly Rounds Played report of 2022.
As of the newly released Q1 2022 rounds played report, The Revenue Club is now feeding in data from their reporting suite, REPORTS.GOLF, which collates the monthly data from all 120 of their partner clubs. The platform is designed to offer insightful reporting to The Revenue Club’s clients.
Since its inception over 20 years ago, the Rounds Played Monitor has operated on the basis of year on year changes in the average number of rounds played by course, a model that allows SMS to offset the impact of courses closing or new courses joining the monitor. That model provides consistency over time, something that remains true with the extra courses supplying data as part of The Revenue Club’s collaboration.
Not only will the additional rounds expand the pool of data to further enhance the validity of the reports, but The Revenue Club will also deliver a quarterly summary of online booking trends across Great Britain to give further information to golf course operators.
“We have worked closely with SMS in the development of our reporting suite which has evolved over the last four years to be the most detailed database of visitor golf data available in the UK,” said Chris Knight, Director at The Revenue Club. “The primary objective of the data is to provide actionable intelligence to our customer base which provides them with insights into their own performance. It also benchmarks them against regional and national trends to identify areas of opportunity to grow revenue. The collaboration with SMS gives us further visibility to the UK market while delivering a greater volume of information to increase the accuracy of a report that holds great weight across the industry.”
Sports Marketing Surveys’ Richard Payne added: “Already in Q1 2022, it’s great to see the fruits of this collaboration in a wider sample for the Rounds Played Monitor. We are always looking for ways to enhance our research programmes and add value. The quality of data captured by The Revenue Club’s reporting tool meets our high standards and we know the extra insights from this collaboration are going to help support those across the industry who rely on the Rounds Played Monitor for a quarterly snapshot of golf trends in Great Britain. Over time, as we embed The Revenue Club data, we can’t wait to start looking at online bookings and see if this area of the market is growing faster than others across the country.”
Overall, rounds played in Great Britain have risen for four consecutive years, a pattern that continues into 2022, with growth against both the lockdown affected 2020 and 2021 and pre-pandemic years of 2019 and 2018. No results for individual clubs are shared. Aggregated findings from the monitor are released quarterly.
Sports Marketing Surveys helps sports and leisure businesses make better strategic decisions by providing robust, independent data and insight. For more information, please visit www.sportsmarketingsurveys.com or contact [email protected]
The Revenue Club grows visitor income through the creation and implementation of dynamic pricing strategies and digital marketing for golf clubs. For more information, please visit www.therevenueclub.co.uk/
Golf Club Talk UK Podcast
The Revenue Club talks technology with the Golf Club Talk UK podcast. Host Leighton Walker is joined by Gavin Robinson of GCMA, Craig Higgs of Golf Genius and Rob Corcoran from The Revenue Club.
How can improved technology enhance customer experience and aid the objectives of those running clubs?
Is golf behind on technology because the members don’t demand it?
How can you devise a technology strategy?
Click here to listen and find out now
UK & Ireland Market Overview – October 2021
In the typically wet and warm month of October 2021, visitor green fee sales at UK and Irish courses dropped by 21% from September to an average of £8,927 per club. This was a smaller month on month reduction to the previous year which encountered a sharper drop of 26% in October 2020. It follows a similar trend to the year to date which has been characterised by a more consistent volume of sales from one month to the next with less volatile external factors.
Average sales were 13% down on last October which is also in keeping with summer trends and illustrates the slightly lower demand across the domestic markets. The average UK and Irish golf course still remains 8% ahead of their 2020 sales with a full month of growth to come against the lockdown of November 2020. This should cement the overall increase in sales for the majority of courses although the recent heavy rain and unpredictability of the weather at this time of year could hinder sales at the start of the winter season.
The average green fee at UK courses was up by £1.69 per person on last October to £21.75. This has led to a healthy £5 increase per booking to £49.76 which is the highest recorded and shows how the industry continues to develop with raised prices to take advantage of the high volume of sales. It is also indicative of the slowdown in cheaper twilight sales that tends to happen late in the season with the reduction of daylight hours.
Demand on booking engines reduced in line with sales by 18% from September and 28% on the previous year. This is a more significant year on year drop than the summer months when the volume of traffic was more in keeping with the previous year and could indicate that golf courses could be more susceptible to the post Covid-19 slowdown in the winter season as fairweather golfers elect not to play.
November 2021 presents an excellent opportunity for courses to generate additional year on year growth, and as Covid cases increase across the UK again, it could present favourable conditions for golf courses with caution around indoor activities. One point to bear in mind is that December 2020 sales were very strong due to the lockdowns in November and January so it may be challenging to keep pace with the previous year.
To benchmark your club against this data contact [email protected]
Webinar – how to maximise your tee sheet
We’ve been working alongside the Golf Club Managers Association to deliver a number of webinars to help their members look at ways to use online tee sheets to their full potential.
In this GCMA Hot Topics webinar we talk through the three pillars of effective online green fee sales: