STAR-BULLETIN FILE
Kapalua's Plantation Course, host of the annual Mercedes Championships, is one of the courses that attracts Hawaii tourists. Golfers' median annual income of $104,839 have made them appealing marketing targets.
Golfers’ deep pockets
have state seeing greenThe HVCB has initiated
magazine advertising along
with other marketing efforts
New surveys confirm that North American golfers are an affluent, independent, well-heeled market that is ideal for Hawaii tourism, but there's heady competition to attract them, and the state is in the early round of spending tourism marketing dollars on the sport.
Mainland golfers have a median annual income of $104,839, and do a wide range of activities when they visit Hawaii, including snorkeling, scuba, touring and shopping. The golfers typically travel at least once a year to golf and take the sport seriously in deciding where to travel.
California tops the list of popular golf destinations, followed by Europe, Florida, then Hawaii, which edged out Nevada. The surveys show that Hawaii is popular, although the state hasn't branded itself as a golf destination, said Mark Rolfing, NBC golf commentator and former board member of the Hawaii Tourism Authority.
The Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau has had limited resources to promote golf, and more recently initiated magazine advertising in golf magazines, plus other efforts, said Gail Ann Chew, a bureau vice president. The state is now spending $2 million on the six-tournament PGA Tour Aloha Season, said Frank Haas, tourism marketing director for the HTA.
Market Trends Pacific Inc. of Honolulu conducted separate surveys of PGA Tour partners club members on the mainland, and of visitors to Hawaii, reaching nearly 2,000 golfers. The bureau and the state authority released the results yesterday.
The median income of golfers pits them in the highly-sought group of Hawaii visitors making six-figure incomes each year. Of Hawaii's U.S. travelers in 2001, 40.4 percent made $100,000 or more, according to the state's 2001 Visitor Satisfaction and Activity Report.
Some 17 percent of Hawaii's mainland visitors reported playing golf in 2001, which is less than other forms of recreation, notably water sports. There are more than 80 golf courses across the islands.
The top ways of reaching golfers are through golf magazine articles, word-of-mouth, past course experience and the Internet the surveys said. Televised events, travel books, print advertising and newspaper articles were less crucial, with less than 30 percent of golfers citing them as a source of information.
The surveys found that mainland golfers play more than five times a month, and that 87 percent said golf was somewhat or very important in making a travel decision.
The U.S. golf travel market has tripled in the past decade, reaching $26 billion a year, with more than one-third of it spent on golf-specific vacations, according to the National Golf Foundation.
Hawaii's courses ranked high on the surveys, beaten only by Florida and California, and Hawaii's courses more often meet and exceed expectations. The golfers said they tend to look for scenery, good course conditions and quality of service and facilities. The survey also found that half of Hawaii's golfers say it's very important to have a guaranteed tee time.
Some 55 percent of mainland golfers say they book their trips on their own, while 23 percent use the Internet and only 13 percent rely on travel agents.
The state hopes to use the new information as a baseline to improve their marketing.
