The Pellucid Perspective - February 2024 - 7

crease in labor costs permanent. New rules defining " contract
labor " are also likely to raise both the base labor and also benefit
costs.
As we have pointed out before, golf course operators have
shown restraint in raising prices - revenue gains were largely
tied to volume increases as rounds demand grew and Course
Utilization rose from the low 50% range for the 15 years prior
to the Pandemic to almost 70% today. But those high utilization
rates will make volume based revenue gains harder to come by.
Our smarter operators are wondering how to raise revenues so
that increasing expenses don't eat into their margins.
Obviously, price increases can produce higher revenues; but
there are risks. We pointed out in the SOI that we think one of
the reasons for golf's stretch of good performance is tied to the
price restraint we've shown and that golf is viewed as a " recreational
value " when compared to other activities that compete
for leisure time and discretionary income. We included a Wall
Street Journal quote discussing these expense and pricing issues
for restaurants in Washington, DC - raise the price and watch
the customers go elsewhere.
A few of those ideas were discussed - better tee sheet " infill " ,
Dynamic Pricing along with prepay deposits to combat
no-shows are prevalent. Increasing range revenue with launch
monitor technology has also been successful.
Whether it's helping a golfer find an increasingly scarce tee
time (in-fill), promoting new range technology or pointing
out your investment in improving course conditions; customer
communication is critical. And this is where it's going to get
interesting - " Google and Yahoo are lowering the hammer on
indiscriminate email marketing " WSJ, February 6, 2024.
As we have said in the past, email is not dead - in fact it is
growing in importance and value. With the phase out of cookies
(another subject) and other tech privacy regulations; email remains
an effective marketing tool. " A 2021 report from Gartner
(a research firm) found email to be the best performing channel
for technology marketers, beating newer channels including
social media, search-engine optimization and digital-display
advertising. " WSJ, February 6, 2024
I guess we're just a little ahead of the curve - " Anybody who
thinks email is a technology " antique " is not paying attention.
Not only is email usage projected to increase 24% over the
next 5 years; 48% of GenZ (14-18) and 36% of Millenials (1934)
report they intend to increase their email usage over that
same timeframe (statista.com). They are apparently finding
out that email is a better form of communication for certain
correspondence than truncated Twitter messages, public photo
sharing on Instagram or Snapchat and a host of other business
related functions. " Stuart Lindsay, Pellucid Perspective, May,
2019
Believe it or not, most golf courses are classified as " bulk
To learn more, contact us at 888.827.9775,
or visit TrueClubSolutions.com.
TRUECLUBSOLUTIONS.COM | 888.827.9775
www.PellucidcorP.com
The Pellucid PersPecTive
7
http://www.statista.com https://www.troon.com/ http://www.PellucidcorP.com
The Pellucid Perspective - February 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Pellucid Perspective - February 2024
