BC Golf Sector Pivots During COVID-19 Pandemic
The BC Golf Alliance, which partners with the Destination BC Co-Operative Marketing Program, was looking forward to strong year in 2020 for the sector. By February 29, 2020, website visits to www.GolfInBritishColumbia.com were up 25% YTD, and sales through the BC Golf Marketing Alliance were up 127%, primarily from the US. Then the pandemic hit, and impacted the golf sector, as it did the rest of the tourism industry.
During the initial pandemic restrictions, they paused all activities for over two months, but were able to be back in market on May 21, 2020. While the market mix and revenues were quite different to what they typically see, many golf facilities across BC reported a 20-40% increase in member and passholder rounds.
Once they were able to be back in market, they used Co-op funds to adapt their marketing to pivot given the difficulties. Modified marketing activities included:
- Focused on “Stay and Play in BC’s Backyard” messaging
- E-newsletters to their very engaged database of over 25,000 subscribers
- Focused on acquisition and retargeting campaigns in BC
- Content acquisition and added 36 new Google AMP stories
- Now focused on inspiration for a BC golf vacation in 2021
In September 2020, golf rounds in Canada were up 15.5% YTD. In BC, rounds played were up 20.4%, the highest of all provinces, and well above the national average.
