Several of our frontline operators warned us about this when they received our previous March Weather Impact email saying, “Yeah, but we’re giving some of that back in the first two weeks of April.” At the national level, April was off 5% vs. Year Ago (YA) which reduced the Year-to-Date favorability to +8%. The YtD regional positive/negative breadth ratio remained neutral at 1:1 with 22 regions having favorable weather against 19 regions with unfavorable weather (the remaining 3 in the neutral zone of +/- 2%, all regions are now in-season). Looking at YtD weather impact performance by day-of-week, favorability is relatively balanced across weekends vs. weekdays. With 4 months now in the books and weather in solid positive territory, the $64M question is, “How much of this early season favorability will we retain by year end?” Pellucid subscribers know the answer to those questions because the supporting figures for the 2016 full-year comparative GPH for Total US, the comparison to the 10-year average and the day-of-week breakdowns are available to them in the Geographic Weather Impact Tracking report or Pellucid Publications suite via the Client Login section at the Pellucid website. Cognilogic facility weather impact subscribers also know these figures for their individual facility (go to www.pellucidcorp.com to subscribe or for more information; for information-seekers we’ll send you a sample of the ’15 1st half actual results to review).
Rounds demand data for March as published by Golf Datatech reported the monthly figure at +13% vs. YA and the YtD level registering at +6%. Comparing that result to the previously-reported GPH results, we continue to trail moderately in Utilization as the weather posted significantly stronger gains. Utilization figures for the month at the National and 61 key Markets level are also available to Pellucid Publications members and Geographic Weather Impact report subscribers.
Jim Koppenhaver comments, “While we’d love the GPH and rounds demand “comps” to be favorable every month, mathematics and the laws of probability don’t usually cooperate. April’s slight pullback wasn’t unusual (it actually was in line with the 10-yr average at the national level just for reference) or severe so we’ll take it and move on. The Great Lakes and Upper Midwest are entering the season with relative weather softness on balance after April’s performance while the NE has had a good start weather-wise to their season. For our full season geographies, the SE is still in the “green” as well as TX while FL, the Desert SW and the West Coast aren’t getting much help from Mother Nature through 4 months. In Utilization, 3 of the Top 5 US markets have held their own through 4 months which is encouraging but the overall 61 markets picture has a negative breadth ratio for this measure of 1:4 with 33 markets with lower Utilization against only 8 beating the weather. May officially opens the season for the bulk of rounds nationally so we’ll have to wait and see how the weather and rounds demand materialize through the next 4 core season months. It’s always good though to start the season in green figures and we have visibility to the Year-End Forecast GPH numbers which also provide some encouragement.”
A broader and more detailed scorecard of the monthly key industry metrics, including the Revenue and Rate figures, can be found in Pellucid’s free digital magazine, The Pellucid Perspective. To register to get the current and future editions, go to www.pellucidcorp.com/news/elist, fill in the information and you’ll be registered for the next edition on 5/15/16.
Intelligent, curious and courageous industry stakeholders wanting the detailed metrics and monthly updates on weather impact at the national, regional and market level as well as utilization and the full year forecast numbers have two subscription options:
• Subscribe to the Geographic Weather Impact Analysis Tracking service ($299, 12 reports annually at national, 45 weather regions and 61 key markets levels) or
• Subscribe to the Pellucid Publications Membership (Outside the Ropes monthly newsletter, 2014 State of the Industry, 2013 Industry Golf Consumer Franchise Scorecard, Geographic Weather Impact Analysis tracking, 2014 Top 25 US Golf Markets reports, Golf Participant Base Projection analysis) for $495 annually.
For individual facility owner/operators who need facility-level history, current year results by month and day-of-week and full year forecast data, Pellucid/Edgehill’s self-serve, web-delivered, real-time weather impact service product, Cognilogic, is your answer. It’s available for $240 for the year-end report and unlimited annual access via the Cognilogic web portal or $120 for a single year-end report. For more information, contact Stuart Lindsay of Edgehill Golf Advisors (mailto:edgehillgolf@msn.com) or click here Order Cognilogic.
You can order any of the above information services via Pellucid’s Online Store.
Contact:
Jim Koppenhaver, President, Pellucid Corp.
jimk@pellucidcorp.com
www.pellucidcorp.com
