’22 Rounds Down but Demand for Golf Was Up?
Stuart and I are back from our annual Orlando pilgrimage having delivered our 20th consecutive State of the Industry (SoI) presentation to just under 250 attendees between our Golf Business Conference and PGA Show sessions. The PGA session was the full Monty which included 60 action-packed minutes of numbers, analysis and trend observations/projections including demonstrations of the next generation of 3 core tools which contribute to the annual SoI:
- The Golf Market Research Center
- Cognilogic (current year historical) & Foresight (60-day forecast) weather impact
- Golf Local Market Analyzer (individual facility local market dynamics)
In a discussion prior to the GBC presentation, we were chatting with one of the multi-course operator execs who forwards select Pellucid reports to their (relatively new-to-industry) Board Members. His comment to us, referencing our recently-published bad November Golf Playable Hours (GPH) and the worse December GPH figures, was that the Board was asking whether we were simply rationalizing poor performance with the cover of weather. In effect, they thought we were “gaslighting” poor industry performance (all they knew was rounds -3%) with the excuse of “bad weather”. We had a good laugh between us in that, in all our 21 years of industry reporting, I don’t think we’ve ever been accused of being unduly upbeat.
In this Volume 1 issue reviewing the State of the Industry for our OtR subscribers, we’re going to look at the golf operations scorecard and key metrics which underpin our assertion that the industry had a very healthy ’22 despite demand declining 3-4% (the latter being Golf Datatech’s recently-released December Year-to-Date (YtD) figures which are the only visibility the industry has to performance sans Pellucid):
The cardinal metric of Golf Revenue-per-Available-Round (RevpAR) actually increased nearly 10% for the year
Utilization increased (Played Rounds declined less than Capacity Rounds), eclipsing 70% for the first time since Pellucid started tracking in ‘04
Velocity (Ann. Rds/18-hole Equivalent (EHE) declined due to the intersection of the rounds decline and a continuing fractional annual rate of supply contraction but remained well above Pellucid’s Supply/Demand equilibrium level of 35K
What the above suggests is the support for our headline which is that organic demand for golf actually strengthened in ’22when you have more than rounds to go by and you can quantify/factor in weather impact on industry performance. Read on to make your own decision on whether we’re gaslighting the “downer year” according to rounds or whether we actually just have a more diverse, better scorecard for industry golf operations’ performance.
For our subscribers, keep scrolling down to get the supporting facts and insights. For everyone else, you can get the rest of the story one of three ways:
- Subscribe to the comprehensive Pellucid Publications Membership for $495/yr or $45/mo (annual term), subscribers get access to the following:
- Outside the Ropes monthly digital newsletter
- Annual State of the Industry report portfolio (75-slide PowerPoint presentation plus online access to Jim/Stuart Orlando presentation video)
- Geographic Weather Impact Tracking (US, 45 regions, 61 markets) or Cognilogic for Golf Playable Hours/Capacity Rounds for individual facilities
- National Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard (expanded data and tables underlying this issue’s summary figures)
- Subscribe to OtR, 12 monthly issues for $250/yr or $25/mo (annual term), with a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied at any time during your subscription. Subscribers also get access to the historical archive of past issues (last two years) via the members-only section of the Pellucid website
- Subscribe to Golf Market Research Center (for operators wanting a combination of insights and action tools) – Here’s what’s included in the current “promo package” for either $500 annual or $450 for NGCOA members (or $45/mo or $41/mo respectively):
- Full suite of Performance Tracking reports – Market profile, comparative trends report and 7 KPI scorecard for any month and Year-to-Date for data provided by facility
- Facility-level Cognilogic historical weather impact portal/reports access, Golf Playable Hours & Capacity Rounds by day in current month, by months in current year and by day-of-week in current year with comparisons to Year Ago and the 10-Yr Norm
- Facility-level Foresight 60-day Capacity Rounds forecast, select forecast weather elements (hi/lo temp, daily precip etc.), variance to last year and long-term Normal. Not infallible but better than guessing or trying to collect all that yourself and organize it manually…
- Outside the Ropes monthly e-newsletter (consider this a sample of topics and treatments)
- State of the Industry Presentation, PowerPoint presentation slides of quantitative results and qualitative trends-to-watch as well access to 90-minute PGA Show presentation video
To learn more:
- Click here for 2-page program overview or
- Click here for 15-minute video demo (you do have to register to see video; don’t worry, you’re not signing up for anything)
- Click here to subscribe for a single facility
- Email me for multiple facilities or special situations
As always, samples of all our publications, reports and services are available on the Reports and Services pages of the Pellucid website.
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