Golf Market Research Center: More facility information=More performance insights
The increasing interest and participation in our latest industry-first, the Golf Market Research Center (GMRC), is fueling faster, multi-dimensional and richer insights for the participants and sharpening the focus of Pellucid’s crystal ball for golf operations performance for the year. My lament at the end of ’20 was that we experienced an incredible windfall and all we (kind of) knew at the end of the year was that rounds nationally were up 10-15% over ’19. In light of that, Pellucid/Edgehill decided to formally launch a product already in development, the GMRC. If you’re receiving this email, you’ve already received no fewer than 5 communications on the GMRC but, as a refresher, it’s a web portal-delivered facility performance tracking and market benchmarking tool that incorporates Pellucid’s assets, Edgehill’s brains and your monthly input of 3 figures (Rounds, Golf Revenue, Peak Season Green Fee Rate) to provide comparative reporting (Market Profile, monthly trend graphs, 7-dimensional KPI Scorecard and, based on market participation, benchmarking) immediately visible when you enter your data.
We’ve had the opportunity over the Mar-May period this year to work alongside ~100 facilities which participated in the free 3-month pilot to “observe and report” (channeling Paul Blart) on how this year is playing out across 12 markets represented and how it compares both to ’20 (the outlier year) as well as ’19 (the norm comparison). The pilot participants have had front-row seats to the results both in viewing their reports immediately upon entering their historical data and the monthly updates as well as the summary reports for the “portfolio” that we’ve been sending them. In this issue I’ll pull back the curtain (slightly, because I want you to be a participating member, not a spectator longer-term) and share some of the summary findings:
The January-May ’21 rounds trend which tells 3 stories: 1) the Jan-Feb picture against an “elevated” ’20 base nationally, pre-COVID 2) the Mar-Apr picture which is against the peak of COVID lockdown in ’20 (i.e. severely depressed) and 3) the May picture which is against the opening-but-not-full-throttle period in ’20. For perspective and reference, I’ll also draw those pictures against what I’m calling the ’19 “norm” to show how wild that roller coaster ride was in ’20 vs. ’19
I’ll then switch to our 7-measure KPI Scorecard for the ’21 May Year-to-Date (YtD) period for the “missing elements” in current industry tracking (i.e. anything beyond % change in rounds) to answer some of the key questions like “Is revenue going up proportional to rounds?”, “How much of any revenue gain was due to volume vs. rate?”, “Was weather a factor/how much?”, “Did we increase revenue production (RevpAR) through our factories?”, “Did we do more discounting to get that rounds increase?”
I’ll finish demonstrating my point that the GMRC service is making our clients decision-making and Pellucid’s insights better with my projection, built on the basis of the Jan-May facts and having both the ’20 and ’19 history as reference points, of how I think the balance of the year is going to play out on the rounds measure at the national level (and whether my bet with my colleagues that we don’t match ’20’s results is still in play or in jeopardy)
Our subscribers can read on for this month’s heaping helping of edutainment while our Executive Summary recipients can get the rest of the story one of three ways:
- Subscribe to the Golf Market Research Center (GMRC) – We’re now in the Charter Member subscription period (6/1-7/31). Facilities subscribing to GMRC ($500/yr, $450 for NGCOA members) during this period get the following value-added services as part of the “bundle”:
- OtR annual subscription (you can read the rest of this article!)
- Cognilogic Weather Impact: Historical facility-specific Golf Playable Hours & Capacity Rounds, accessible daily via web portal
- Cognilogic Foresight: 60 day forecast of Capacity Rounds including comparison to prior year, the 10-year norm and select forecast facts (i.e. hi/lo temp, precipitation amount etc.), accessible daily via web portal
- GMRC program revshare: Set up as a cooperative, Charter Members will get annual discounts on their service based on the number of participants and revenue through GMRC in Year 2 and beyond
- Three ways to get more information on the program:
- By reading the 2-pg program summary or
- By viewing the 18 minute webinar demo by yours truly (you have to register to view the video, don’t worry, you’re not signing up for anything, we just want to know who’s viewing our content as the quid pro quo)
- By emailing me
- Subscribe to the Pellucid Publications Membership for $495/yr (for non-facility entities or facilities that don’t want to participate in GMRC but want insights) – Annual subscribers get access to the following:
- Outside the Ropes monthly digital newsletter
- Annual State of the Industry report portfolio (PowerPoint presentation, PDF commentary report, access to Jim/Stuart video of presentation)
- Geographic Weather Impact Tracking (US, 45 regions, 61 markets) or Cognilogic for Golf Playable Hours/Capacity Rounds for individual facilities
- Top 25 US Golf Markets Ranking Scorecard (25+ dimensions, scoring and ranking for largest 25 markets) or Golf Local Market Analysis data workbook for up to 3 draw areas 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 $130/yr 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.