Golf fosters luxury tourism segment

LuxGroup, a luxury travel and tourism company, hospitality, food and beverage provider, and cruise operator, is busy designing luxury golf tours for both foreign and domestic travellers and taking care of delegations who book golf tours.

According to this luxury tour operator, October to April, when the weather is cool, are the perfect months for playing golf and enjoying golf with travellers. The remaining months of the year are also a good time for organising exchange tournaments between golf clubs and groups. Thus, at this time, almost all golf courses in Vietnam operate at full capacity to serve both foreign and domestic travellers.

Sharing the potential of a golf tour, Pham Ha founder of LuxGroup, said that every month of the year offers a perfect golf holiday somewhere in the country, which has a long and thin shape with a 3,260-kilometer coastline and diverse terrain. The mountainous north, the thickly-jungled central highlands, and the tropical south offer topographical variety for golf courses, which are features attracting golfers, especially foreigners interested in conquering challenging terrain.

Regarding the room for development, Vietnam is also located in the centre of Asia, where golf tourism has a large growth potential. A total of 149 golf courses are being built or preparing for construction in Vietnam, accounting for 28 per cent of the courses being implemented all around the world.

The opportunity for golf tours increasing every year. According to the International Association of Golf Tour Operators, there are now nearly 60 million golfers around the world and golf travellers are known for their high expenditure and long stays.

Currently, more than 50,000 Vietnamese and 20,000 foreigners living in Vietnam play golf. The total figure is expected to increase exponentially over the next few years.

“The potential is available; the problem is how to connect the demand and supply. Thus, the opportunity for travel agencies is to design exclusively tailored golf vacations with a variety of experiences, including golfing, sightseeing, exploring, checking in at the golf course; resort services, sightseeing tours around to retain the travellers stay in Vietnam longer,” Ha said.

For example, LuxGroup offers exclusively tailored golf vacations for couples, families and groups of any size. Travellers can visit the most popular destinations, rest at luxury accommodations and play on some of the finest golf courses surrounded by spectacular scenery across the country.

To meet the diverse demand of customers, the company designs both short and long tours, including a five-day or seven-day holiday package, even one-month holiday packages and LuxGroup also has an ecosystem of services to serve their luxury holidays in Vietnam.

Golf tours foster the luxury tourism segment

“The potential is understandable, the idea for tailored golf tour packages is abundant. However, there are still many problems that need to be resolved to unlock this segment. For example, the promotion and introduction of Vietnam’s tourism industry abroad is limited. During the sale process, many wealthy foreigners just book traditional holiday packages to Vietnam, instead of luxury packages including golf because they don’t know that Vietnam has international-standard golf courses,” Ha said.

“Many golfers delegations reflect that sometimes they cannot book golf courses on the weekend as courses are full. This is the reason why we need to have designed golf tours to balance their schedule for golf on weekdays to optimally exploit the golf courses,” he said.

Furthermore, according to other travel agencies, the connection between travel agencies and golf courses is still loose, golf tourism is not connected with other types of tourism such as MICE, there are no professional awards, and golf courses have yet to closely link together. There are no systematic solutions for promoting golf tourism products.

“The reason for this situation is that Vietnam still has limitations in positioning its national brand in the golf segment. We should consider golf as an experienced sport, instead of a luxury sport, and build methodical and professional promotion programmes abroad. For example, we often participate in international tour fairs, including golf fairs to promote the image and our services,” Ha said.

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