REVENUE MANAGEMENT - Creating you demand map (1 of 2)

Demand maps may be different for each element of your business, but your #revenuemanagement strategy should always be focussed on your primary business inventory (Tee sheet, range diary, function room diary, bedrooms etc…). If you have multiple inventory streams that overlap (i.e. a golf resort), knowing your ideal target customer and the inventory of greatest constraint affecting them is critical to mapping demand.

For simplicity, if we focus on the tee sheet, to complete this exercise you will ideally need to have prior year occupancy records, showing all the tee times played rather than times blocked out. You will also need to be clear on the load factor of each tee time (2, 3 or 4 ball play).

Whilst it may seem obvious, there are many golf courses who don’t pair up players and as a result significantly reduce the capacity and profitability of their facility as a result. If you are happy to provide a USP that supports non pairing, then you might want to consider the true cost/value of this and ensure you price accordingly.

Once you have your occupancy map, you will need to break down who played at these times and ideally what price the tee times were sold at. Typically, most golf courses will have member bookings and within that; competitions; rollups; swindles; matches and social tee times. If your member play is not currently being recorded then start now. Without this information, you do not know who is on your course and the impact they are having on your tee sheet or P&L. Of course, change may not be welcomed, particularly by those who have enjoyed prime tee time access since Tom Morris was in short trews, but there are strategies you can implement to the ease transition.

Visitor tee times will often include commissionable bookings, vouchers, county cards and member guests, each with different rates and conditions. Whilst you are not necessarily interested in the specifics of the discounts at this point, understanding the value of these tee times is very important. Also make a note if you have restrictions on visitor use, so that you can understand whether lack of demand at a particular time of day, is an artificial construct, or actually market led. You can also add texture by overlaying the weather data, which sometimes will explain some distortions in the demand patterns.

If you don’t have past booking data, you can use your knowledge of the business to create a placeholder position and then ratify this with the booking data from your current sales.

With the benefit of this data, map demand out on your tee sheet by hour and by day, initially creating a standard winter and summer week using the occupancy level by hour to colour your heat map. Make sure each hour is priced regardless of visitor restrictions, so you will have full transparency on restricted tee time opportunity cost. Follow hotelgolfresortexperts.com for more. #profitabilityimprovement #businessadvice