Golf Tourism England

[Duncan Cheslett]

Has anyone had any dealings with or experience of this organisation?


http://www.golftourismengland.com/


The website is very impressive visually, and makes extravagant claims about GTE being "the official exclusive national body representing Golf Tourism in England"

Yet it appears that GTE is actually just a private venture and limited company owned and operated by a Mr Andrew Cooke. https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08818207/officers


"Membership" of this "official body"  would seem to involve clubs paying an annual fee in order to be featured on its website. To Mr Cooke's credit he has clearly been very successful in recruiting "members" - most of England's top clubs are indeed so featured.

But does it work?

The site doesn't actually sell anything. Interested viewers are simply directed to the home pages of clubs or affiliated independent tour operators. There is no trail by which the efficacy of the site can be measured.

I particularly like the idea of clubs being grouped into local "clusters" so that travelling parties of golfers can be helped in planning their itinerary or tour.  Unfortunately, as mentioned above there is no follow through - one is simply dumped onto the home page of a travel company - the link is not even to the relevant "tour" and is not actually of very much help.  http://www.golftourismengland.com/tours

I have anecdotal evidence of several high profile clubs discontinuing their "membership".

I admit to being puzzled.   A well intentioned but flawed concept, or something else?

[Scott Warren]

Scam? Who’s being scammed?


Maybe he is selling the clubs a poor bang-for-buck form of advertising, but the Fleet Street papers do the same thing every day!


The clubs would be able to track how many people are arriving to their site from GTE’s site and so can measure the direct referral aspect.


From what you say it sounds like a decent idea not executed as well as it could be.


I wouldn’t know the bloke from Adam, but when you publish a company’s name, name the proprietor and then drop the word “scam” without any notion of who is being scammed or how, I reckon that’s pretty poor form.

[Duncan Cheslett]

The clear attempt to portray the company as an officially recognised tourism body is a business tactic that some might consider dubious. I can find no evidence that GTE has any such official status whatsoever.


There is actually a fair bit of money involved. Potential subscriptions run into the hundreds of thousands of pounds per year.


Mr Cooke could well be using this money quite properly in the furtherance of golf tourism in England. If so, hats off to him.


But why the subterfuge?




PS On reflection I've removed the offending word from my original post.

[Matt Dawson]

Duncan

I didn't see your original post, but from Scott's response it seems like you have wisely modified it

I'm not exactly sure what the nature of your complaint is. Surely clubs can advertise with whomever they wish, and base their investment decisions on relative success rates?

Full disclosure - I know Andrew well, play golf with him regularly - and I can tell you that you are way off base in your assertions as to his character

[Duncan Cheslett]

I'm pleased to hear it Matt.


You would be quite right in your assessment if GTE promoted itself as a commercial advertising medium.


It doesn't.


GTE promotes itself as an official body with sole responsibiliy for the promotion of golf tourism in England.  Member clubs must sign a declaration in the small print that they recognise GTE as such.


Andrew is entirety self-appointed in this role.


It may well be that such an organisation is necessary for the promotion of English golf tourism. It may well be that Andrew is the right person to head it up.


Surely however, that initiative should come from England Golf. Not as a result of one man's commercial venture.


If he ends up as the tsar of English golf tourism it may or may not be a good thing. He would in effect own the promotion of golf tourism in England.


There would be little or no accountability.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Andrew seems a nice bloke to me. I would probably describe him as passionate and optimistic about his role and work. He said that Golf Tourism does have government support/money.


My negative bits would be that anyone visiting the UK from abroad pretty much goes to the mainliners (Kent, Lancashire, Liverpool) if it is for golf so I can't really see visitors coming from overseas to play three new courses in Bristol.


There are tourist links and direct website links, it is never easy to see what business comes exactly from which advert but we had no American business in our 461 societies in 2017 and none so far booked for 2018.


I can't justify the advert cost going forward.

[Mark Pearce]

If he claims to be "official" and isn't, then that's misleading.  It's also almost certain to be passing off.  He should change that claim.  Of course, if he is official, all is fine.

[Tom Kelly]

I'd not heard of it before, but looks like a useful website to me. I understand the skepticism but after a quick search I found these links which suggest it is 'official' as far as I can see and has both government and England Golf backing/funding.


https://www.englandgolf.org/news.aspx?itemid=7345&sitesectionid=38


https://www.englandgolf.org/news.aspx?itemid=7784&itemTitle=VisitEngland+backs+GTE%E2%80%99s+work+to+promote+golf+tourism&sitesectionid=38&sitesectiontitle=News


http://www.golf-monthly.co.uk/news/notice-board/uk-government-to-invest-in-golf-tourism-england-114074


Whether it is successful or not I don't know.