The ’24 Season is Here: Are You Ready to (Accurately) Track It?
This could shape up to be one of the most interesting seasons to track in recent history the way our early indicators are pointing and our “read of the tea leaves” between Stuart and myself resulting from weekly client and colleague conversations. The two unadjusted metrics of Golf Revenue and Rounds would appear to be pointing higher. Their weather-adjusted counterparts however, % Utilization and GRev-per-Available Round, are odds-favorites to finish lower.
In this issue I’ll outline why this divergent crystal ball reading and why I think facilities should pay more attention this year to weather-adjusted performance to determine what good fortune is likely to persist (that built upon good planning and execution including better Customer Relationship Management (CRM)) and what’s likely to be fleeting come ‘25:
- There’s widespread and significant weather favorability coming out of our national, annual forecast in conjunction with AccuWeather
- How will you know whether you exceeded/matched/lagged that upside when it inflates your figures?
- Wouldn’t it be good to know that intra-season instead of wondering what happened come end September?
If there’s one thing Stuart’s been like a broken record in our 20+ year relationship, it’s his insistence that “You cannot have an intelligent discussion about golf facility performance without incorporating weather impact.” He’s been proven right in multiple years since we first developed weather impact tracking for golf, the most recent being ’22 when rounds declined ~3%, Golf Playable Hours declined ~4% and Utilization actually increased by 0.4 pts to 67.9%. I predict that ’24 is going to catch the majority of you flat-footed in understanding how much improvement and prosperity you actually drove and likely get to keep in ’25. As Warren Buffet once said, “You don’t know who’s swimming naked until the tide goes out.” Read on, I’m going to offer you a bathing suit.
Subscribers, keep scrolling down to get the supporting facts and insights while everyone else can get in on the conversation 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
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