The first “major” month of the season registered the same values as 2015 as the national level Golf Playable Hours (GPH) came in fractionally below (below 1%) Year Ago (YA) slightly reducing the Year-to-Date favorability to +5%. The YtD regional positive/negative breadth ratio remained neutral at 1:1 with 21 regions having favorable weather against 17 regions with unfavorable weather (the remaining 7 in the neutral zone of +/- 2%, all regions are now in-season). Looking at YtD weather impact performance by day-of-week, favorability swung sharply to weekdays vs. weekends which provides some support for why rounds demand is trailing the weather gains. With 5 months now in the books and weather continuing to be a positive indicator, 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 April as published by Golf Datatech reported the monthly figure at +2% vs. YA and the YtD level registering at +4%. Comparing that result to the previously-reported GPH results, we saw the first Utilization gain in a long time in April with positive rounds demand against a decline in weather. For the YtD period, at the national level Utilization continues to be in negative territory with positive demand continuing to slightly lag the more favorable weather. 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, “The headline this month is not the May weather but rather the April Utilization gain. This is one of the first months in recent years where we saw and increase in rounds demand at the national level vs. a meaningful decline in the weather which provides some encouragement that the industry has the potential to outperform weather, we just haven’t found a consistent and formulaic way to achieve that yet. For May, not a bad opening month to the season at the national level, not the big weather favorability we’d like to see but, building on the April results, we’ll have to see if the industry is able to put together a 2nd month’s gain in demand behind basically flat weather. May weather was not particularly kind to the East Coast or the Pacific NW but the Desert SW had a good weather month and TX didn’t fare badly (before the June floods). All in all, not a bad report card nationally but, as always, there are local pockets of good and bad scattered throughout (i.e. depending on your location, your actual weather mileage may vary).”
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 6/15/16.
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
