Scottish golf suffers from US no-shows

Scottishgolf.com, 19 September 2001

Clubs and courses are facing massive cancellations as Americans decide to stay at home The effects of last week's terrorist atrocity in the United States are now being felt by the UK tourist industry - particularly those involved in golf in Scotland.

Kingsbarns Golf Club, for example, a prestigious new development in St Andrews, has had 500 cancellations from American visitors for October alone and the St Andrews Links Trust, which manages the town's courses, including the Old (pictured), estimates that at least 150 Americans have cancelled.

A spokesperson for the Trust said the volume of cancellations was slowly but steadily increasing.

Jamie Gardner, secretary of the Scottish Incoming Golf Tour Operators Association, said: 'A number of us had a meeting yesterday (Tuesday) and the potential losses are going to be into the millions. Most operators are trying to re-schedule proposed trips for next year and in that regard hotels and golf courses are being very accommodating.

'It has the potential to be a major problem but there are so many unknowns that nobody is completely sure what will happen. A lot of the exact figures are unavailable because people are still waiting to see what will happen with the Ryder Cup having been postponed.'

Travel industry insiders report a high level of enquiries last week in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington but since the weekend's announcement that the Ryder Cup will not go ahead at the end of this month in Birmingham, because of the American team's reluctance to travel, those enquiries have been turning into firm cancellations.

Almost all those pulling out are Americans and many of them had timed their visit to coincide with the Ryder Cup.

Mark Rigg, managing director of Links Golf, a tour operator based in St Andrews, said: 'It's basically wiping out the whole end of the season but at least a lot of people are re-organising for next year, which is the best we can hope for. Millions of pounds worth of business has been cancelled but everyone's working together to try and soften the impact as much as possible and get these people to re-schedule for next year.'

Stuart McEwen, general manager of Kingsbarns GC, one of the hardest hit courses, said: 'Everyone has their own cancellation terms and conditions but because this is such an unprecedented situation, and such a one-off, we have a full refund policy that applies indefinitely.

'The 500 cancellations we have to date apply only to October but we have another 500-600 bookings between now and November. In some instances I suspect people are waiting to see what the level of retaliation [from America to the terrorists] will be but that also is bound to have an impact between now and next year.'

The news comes just as Scotland was beginning to reap the rewards of a dedicated golf tourism strategy, which came out of a national tourism strategy when first minister Henry McLeish was the minister responsible.

Susan Grant, Scottish golf tourism development manager with Vistscotland [formerly the Scottish Tourist Board] explains: 'The strategy is to get people interested in all courses in Scotland,' and the hope was that visitors, having played one or two big name venues, such as St Andrews and Carnoutie, would then sample lesser known golf clubs throughout Scotland.

And it was not just rhetoric. The golf marketing budget leapt from £100,000pa to over £1 million. There has been a successful poster campaign in places like the London underground, extolling the virtues of Scotland as a holiday destination, newspaper advertisements in the New York Times during the Masters and, for the first time ever, television advertisements promoting Scotland as the home of golf.

Susan Grant adds: 'In light of the immediate decline in visitor numbers from the USA it is important to emphasise that this is, and will remain, a hugely important market for us. However, at the moment we're all waiting to see what will transpire over the next few days and weeks and, while our marketing activity in America will not stop, it may become necessary for us to increase our activity in the rest of the UK and Europe.'

For the moment at least, ambitions to increase visitor traffic, especially from America, must be regarded, like the Ryder Cup itself, as being on hold.