June weather impact followed the expected summer pattern of moderate change with Golf Playable Hours (GPH) flat (+0.2%) compared to year ago (YA). This brought the Year-to-Date (YtD) weather impact to -5% vs. YA, another slight gain from May’s YtD level of -7%. Regional breadth for the YtD period further deteriorated to 1:2.1 with 13 regions having favorable weather offset by 27 regions with unfavorable weather (5 in the neutral zone of +/- 2%). The weekend vs. weekday distribution of weather variance is slightly benevolent with weekdays showing a change of -6% in GPH compared to -2% for weekends.
Looking back on May rounds demand as reported by Golf Datatech/NGF to calculate % Utilization, May registered a decline of 3 points to 49% (comprised of a 7% decrease in rounds against a 1% decline in Capacity Rounds). For the YtD period, Utilization held steady at 53% (comprised of a 6% decrease in rounds against a 7% decline in Capacity Rounds) even with the 2010 year-end value of 53%. Among the YtD market utilization “winners” are Seattle, Dallas and Boston while the “biggest losers” consist of Denver, Cincinnati and Columbus.
Jim Koppenhaver comments, “Not surprisingly, June at the national level didn’t produce any big swings in summary weather at the national level. This is due to the fact that temperature becomes less of an influencing factor (except in the desert and deep south locations which will lose GPH due to unacceptably high temps) and it becomes more of a game about rainfall during summer months. At the regional and market level however, we did see some significant swings in GPH for the month to the downside (Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas, San Francisco all registering 10%+ declines vs. YA) and the upside (Denver, Portland, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh all showing 5%+ increases). Unlike previous summers where we’ve seen more muted results across the markets summing to a relatively flat national total, this year we’re getting more highs and lows cancelling out each other to produce the net “flat” effect. We’re also seeing more partial day weather exclusions this year which reinforces why you can’t rely on the alternate industry approaches to weather of measuring whole Playable Days or the even weaker approach of saying “temperature up, rounds up” or “rainfall up, rounds down”.
On the facility golf fees (GF) revenue side via the May PGA PerformanceTrak numbers, the YtD period showed a 3% decline comprised of a 5% decrease in rounds and a 2% increase in rate at the All Facility level (they fixed last month’s glitch on the rate measure). Coupled with the YtD change in GPH of -7%, this produces a positive differential of 4 points suggesting that the vast majority of the national-level GF revenue unfavorability through May can be explained by poorer weather.
A broader and more detailed scorecard of the monthly key industry metrics can be found in Pellucid’s new digital magazine, The Pellucid Perspective. To register to get the current and future editions, go to http://www.pellucidcorp.com/utilities/guest.html, select any of the existing services for information and it will register you to receive it.
Parties interested in understanding and quantifying what part of rounds and revenue performance is due to ”controllable” vs. ”uncontrollable” factors (i.e. course owners, lenders, buyers, sellers, equipment manufacturers, retailers and service providers) can find more information on Pellucid’s weather capabilities at www.pellucidcorp.com.
Affordable weather impact tracking report options are available at regional level ($199/yr, 45 regions, 12 rpts), market level ($299/yr, 61 markets & 12 regions, 12 rpts) and individual facility level ($249, 3 years of history by month and day-of-week and current year forecast). For more specific information on how Pellucid’s Weather Impact capabilities answer key business performance questions, including a sample report and pricing, contact Jim Koppenhaver at jimk@pellucidcorp.com.
Contact:
Jim Koppenhaver, President, Pellucid Corp.
jimk@pellucidcorp.com
www.pellucidcorp.com
