Revenue management is a crucial part of any business, and Troon has mastered the process for daily-fee and resort golf clubs. With an objective approach to understanding your club’s goals and data, Troon builds detailed plans designed to improve your revenue growth with tangible and flexible tactics.

What is revenue management, you may ask? It is a process in which data analysis is utilized to forecast demand and determine growth opportunities. For example, forecasting a higher demand in your afternoon rounds for a particular day will give you the opportunity to adjust your plan to help capture additional revenue through a change in rate, ancillary spend or by even obtaining revenue earlier in the booking process. 

However, if the data analysis is not done correctly or in line with your club’s business plan, you could risk losing revenue by charging too much or even too little. That’s where Troon comes in—our strategic approach is unmatched in detail and results. With Troon on your team, you can breathe easy knowing you have experts in your corner.

The Troon Revenue Management Approach

Troon’s golf course revenue management process can be broken down into four steps:

1. Collect detailed data to understand the golf course’s history
2. Understand the golf club’s goals, competitive set and areas of opportunity
3. Build an hour-by-hour, dynamic strategy that scales based on factors like occupancy, days in advance, weather and others
4. Collaborate with the golf club to react to demand and build multiple channels for future guests

Our revenue growth management experts use a variety of tools, both internal and external, to help understand past history, predict demand and build plans ready to attack. Our team has experience with almost every kind of tee-sheet and point-of-sale system in the golf industry, allowing us to integrate and show results more quickly.

Between our process and expertise, we have ample resources to dedicate to your club’s revenue growth. Troon’s dedicated revenue management team answers some questions about this service’s importance and position in the golf industry.

Q&A With Troon’s Revenue Management Team

Troon leads the way in golf revenue management best practices. Our talented revenue management team focuses specifically on data analysis, plan creation and reporting, ensuring every club is given the utmost attention and expertise from our staff. Below, we ask our team for some expertise – and even a case study – to help explain why revenue management is such important work.

1. How does revenue management impact more than a club’s revenue?

In theory, revenue management uses data to find answers to problems for revenue purposes. In the public space, revenue management helps garner additional rounds of golf by changing the price and offerings to fit demand. More rounds mean more direct and ancillary revenue, such as Food & Beverage (F&B) and golf shop merchandise sales. 

In the private setting, revenue management is used to understand offerings for prospective members and how to set up tee sheets to make life easier for current members. To that end, revenue management must be intertwined with operations as well as sales and marketing. 

We help set up technology and tee sheets to allow people to book tee times, making it easier for the golf shop staff. We also focus on getting people to book online to build a database and create loyalty, another big marketing aspect to take into consideration.

2. Why would you recommend everyone employ a revenue management service?

The main reason is revenue management is undoubtedly the best bang-for-your-buck initiative in most industries. To use a team of people to focus on data and create a plan to increase rounds and revenue shouldn’t be a recommendation but a requirement. 

How many airplanes would take off for a destination with the idea that they could get there simply because they have done it before? There’s a reason there is a flight plan to follow because it provides clarity and the best possible route for efficiency and ultimate success. 

Rounds are the most crucial thing to a daily fee golf course—they directly drive the most important top-line revenue numbers and then drive food sales, merchandise spending and, hopefully, membership fees. Having the plan to focus on this is critical to success, and it’s why our plans find success, even in clubs that are doing “well.” Our methods provide that extra step by focusing on other options with an objective.

3. Why trust Troon to manage your revenue goals and strategy?

There are only a handful of dedicated teams for revenue management and data analytics in the golf management space, and Troon has been doing this for a long time. 

Our team has specific degrees and training coming from other hospitality worlds, like hotel and airline revenue management as well as sports ticketing and, of course, golf operations and marketing backgrounds. We understand how to analyze data from all types of golf courses and customize plans to reach customers’ goals.

4. Can you share a case study? Where did Troon help that golf club have the biggest impact?

Troon managed a club in the upper Northeast, and 45 days after our revenue strategies were implemented, the club saw the following results (with no change in inventory, course conditions or pandemic-related boost in demand):

• +$2.12 Average Rate
• +2,523 Rounds
• +$140,558 Revenue

Every club has different goals. Some want more rounds, while others want more ADR (Average Daily Rate), so we focus on the blend and increasing RevPAR (Revenue per Available Round). This allows us to understand if we made the right decision to either raise or lower the rate – did we get enough or too many rounds for the price we offered? 

For the above club in particular, we increased our rate when there was a high demand and lowered our rate to provide an incentive to play in times with lower demand. Doing this specifically and methodically is the key to finding success. Then we married this with proper marketing to get our information into the hands of the golfers.

5. Any other thoughts on revenue management?

Revenue management is a focus in so many industries, including hotels, rental car agencies and ticketing services. A perfect example is the recent news from AMC Theatres announcing they will vary pricing based on where you sit in a theater. 

The elements of revenue management are all around us, and to not use these proven tactics to increase your most precious revenue source—rounds—would be a mistake. 

So many golf courses spend their time and energy on their F&B menu or which golf shirts to bring into the golf shop. While these areas are still important ones that Troon’s services support, it is curious to note that many clubs have F&B and retail managers but don’t necessarily have revenue managers or a focus on revenue management. Interesting to think about when the #1 source of revenue for clubs are rounds and members!

With all this helpful insight and results from golf clubs like yours, we hope you see the value Troon has to offer in revenue management. Contact us today and grow your revenue tomorrow.