Last week I mentioned you that Michael Galosso, the Chief Operating Officer at Golfscape.com will share here his thoughts about the latest trend in golf tourism. Social technology is definitely changing the landscape and what think about golf tourism. This is why I asked in my pervious post, do we really need travel agents when we can get unique insight about a golf course via social media.
Michael brings here some examples how the shared economy and crowdsourcing will transform golf travel.
Here are his thoughts:
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.
Whether staying in a private residence when traveling abroad to play golf is your bag or not, the story does beg the question:
Will golf travel transform from the current Tour Operator- led “Stay n’ Play” model who declare themselves to be “experts” on a particular destination when communicating with customers, and instead move towards a peer-to-peer marketplace?