European Tour Properties venues Terre Blanche Hotel Spa Golf Resort (Provence, France) and PGA Catalunya Resort (Costa Brava, Spain) have been ranked first and third respectively in a prestigious new listing of continental Europe’s finest golf resorts, compiled by Golf World (UK) magazine. The French resort also won in May, Golf Digest USA’s Editors’ Choice Awards.
These are the other well performing European Tour Properties partners:
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Quinta do Lago, Portugal (9th)
Montgomerie Maxx Royal, Turkey (13th),
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Troia Resort, Portugal (20th),Le Golf National, venue of The 2018 Ryder Cup (23rd)
- Linna Golf (Finland, 94th),
- Diamond Country Club (Austria, 96th),
- Bom Sucesso (Portugal, 99th), and
- Estonian Golf & Country Club (Estonia, 100th)
What are the challenges of the European Tour Properties‘ partners?
While it is good to read about the success of European golf courses, the following trends should not escape our attention in the coming years if we want to succeed:
- Online travel reviews matter more: if you want to excel then highlight (use widgets) on your website customers reviews of your resort on TripAdvisor, Leadingcourses.com etc. They are the REAL ACHIEVEments!! The importance of social media and mobile in the tourism industry will constantly grow. Generation Z and the Millennials are already moving away from Facebook and Twitter toward chat platforms like SnapChat, Viber etc.
- Come up with mobile solutions to provide better customer experience (e.g. mobile check-in; Hilton’s Digital Keys): for more and more people mobile is their lifeline. The Google Consumer Survey found that 68% of mobile users check their mobile every 15 minutes. In 2015, in its Mobile Benchmark Report (Adobe Digital Index, August 2015) Adobe, a software company found that mobile is the preferred way to explore and interact with brands.
- Provide real-time, customized offers: this requires investment in analytics software that can provide you real-time insights. This can help you to differentiate yourself from your competitors as well.
- Utilizing wearables: they can not only help your customers feel good in your golf resort but improve the quality communication of your employees among themselves and with the guests. For instance, Shangri-La Hotels are using Samsung Gear VR headsets across all global sales offices. The hotel group has produced impressive VR videos for over a quarter of their 94 hotels and resorts. Their intention is to give a better understanding to their prospects of the Shangri-La product and experience.
