Category: Travel

Play Global. Stay Local.

Transforming Golf Travel with the Shared Economy and Crowdsourcing 

I spoke with a golf journalist recently who shared a story with me. When he visited the International Golf Travel Market 2013, IAGTO’s flagship travel trade show in Marbella – Spain, he wanted to try an experiment. He booked his flight and transfers himself, but then tapped into a Peer-to-Peer community via Airbnb and other shared economy platforms to plan and book the remaining golf / accommodation components of his show visit.

He ended up locating and staying in a private residence he discovered through one of the platforms, played a handful of rounds at top courses in Marbella that the host arranged on his behalf and made a life long friend that shared other insight on the golf destination he never knew about (no easy feat for a know-it-all journalist that prides himself on being fully informed).

The transaction was secondary to the interaction. That’s community in my mind.

There’s no doubt that my friend’s previous knowledge of the region as a journalist from countless years covering the destination armed him with enough knowledge, and more importantly comfort, to go about planning and booking his trip in a self-directed manner. Some in golf might call him a vagabond, while others perhaps just calling him a normal 30-something using the shared economy to cultivate his own unique, personal and downright simple to organize golf travel experience that offered so much more.

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How is your Destination Performing with the Lucrative Canadian Golf Travel Market?

Canadian golf travelers for sometime have represented a solid 10-15% of the business for United States golf destinations and daily-fee resort courses. But where are they going? With golfscape.com being a team of analytics and data-driven golf geeks, we thought we would dive into the data via Google Auto Fill and share our findings.

From Toronto, Canada, we searched “golf in A_”, “golf in B_”, etc. and recorded the results of each top search query from A-Z. The findings were insightful and both reinforced our pre-conceived notions of what we thought were the most popular golf travel destinations users seek out, based on marketing / advertising awareness, but at the same time showed some lesser known destinations performing extremely well as a quote-on-quote underdog.

Golf in Jamaica outperforming Golf in Jacksonville, FL

You would think with the Jacksonville, Florida area hosting the annual Players Championship and TV spots you see promoting “Visit Jacksonville” during the telecast, that it would trump any competing destination. However, evidently Jamaica’s “Get in the Swing of Things” golf tourism campaign and newly enhanced digital presence seems to own the highly coveted Google search ecosystem in the letter “J” category.

Golf in Williamsburg, VA outperforming Golf in West Palm Beach, FL

I guess the 50,000 likes Visit Williamsburg has on Facebook is really moving the needle in comparison to West Palm Beach despite the fact that the later is home to the PGA of America, enjoys the PR buzz worthiness that follows countless Tour pros living in the area and more golf courses per square mile. Another victory for the underdog Williamsburg, VA in the “W” category!

Take a golfscape and #PlayGlobal

golfscape.com is everywhere! Six continents, 42 countries and over 100 destinations worldwide, and best of all, you can now discover golf in the most personalized way ever realized in this mobile-driven world.

We’re a young, fresh technology startup solving big challenges head on and accelerating golf travel into the 21st century. Let’s face it, the golf travel industry in its current form is broken. No more old-fashioned tour operators that your grandfather used, requiring expensive phone calls, to play in far flung parts of the world. Instead, you are in control with golfscape – our self-service platform for the do-it-yourself inclined makes experiences unique to you.

Considering a nice stay-and-play vacation with your partner? No problem, there are plenty of fantastic five star locales you can discover within our “Golf Destinations” feature at golfscape.

Want to play where royalty has played? We’ve got that covered as well with our curated content. How about Royal Adelaide Golf Club or Royal Blackheath in the UK? The latter was established in the year 1608 and arguably the oldest club in the world!

golfscape provides instant access to connect and play leading courses around the world, and simplifies golf destination planning for the self-directed traveller. That’s you, right?

We’re thrilled that the golf community has responded and we welcome you to connect with us through our social platforms on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, and Linkedin. Share our story far and wide!

Now #PlayGlobal golfscaper’s!