More than 60 million people play this sport around the world, and it keeps on growing (Murphy & Wright, 2014). It is a sport that not only is played by many people in the World but also it is an expensive sport. There are countries where the sport is widely spread and relatively inexpensive such as in England, Germany or Spain. There are many courses available offering expensive memberships as well as pay as you go offers. However, the sport remains and expensive sport for the great majority. This sport moves the masses; it has a great adherence of sponsors and several economies of the world depend greatly on the tourism of golf to their country (Murphy & Wright, 2014).
Europe in certain particular destinations such as Portugal (Pereira, Correira & Shutz, 2015), South Africa (Tassiopoulus & Haydam, 2008), USA and Asia are areas destinations chosen by players to go on holidays and take advantage of beautiful courses to play in. Golfers search around the World for new experiences: on new beautiful courses as well as in their chosen destination in the form of touristic attractions. According to Mason & Moretti (2015), as an urban lifestyle is growing and becomes stressful, people chose this sport and new tourism destinations as a way of escaping from such a lifestyle and having some “green” in their life.
Furthermore, with the new “green” mentality, some are even searching for eco-tourism, and golf is not an exception (Minoli, Goode & Smith, 2015).
Sports tourism has been growing in the last decades, and there have been a large amount of research done on this topic for marketing purposes. There is still a great potential for countries’ economies if they continue to develop this market (Gibson (1998) and Garau-Vadell & Borja-Sole (2008)). There are many studies that provide information for brands, resorts, tourism agencies and countries to develop products, software’s, services and many others. There are still many opportunities to explore, including world memberships of golf clubs for tourists to explore the world while playing golf, or tournament plus playing experiences, and even family holidays with services catering the golfing members of the family and the non-player members.
References
Gibson, J. H. (1998). Sports Tourism: A Critical Analysis of Research. Sports Management Review, 1(1):45-76.
Tassiopoulus, D. & Haydam, N. (2008). Golf tourists in South Africa: A demand-side study of a niche market in sports tourism. Tourism Management, 29(5):870-882.
Garau-Vadell, J. B. & Borja-Sole, L. (2008). Golf in mass tourism destinations facing seasonality: A longitudinal study. Tourism Review, 63(2):16-24.
Minoli, D. M., Goode, M. H. & Smith, M. T. (2015). Are eco-labels profitably employed in sustainable tourism? A case study on Audubon Certified Golf Resorts. Tourism Management Perspective 16:207-216.
Pereira, R., Correia, A. & Schutz, R. (2015). Golf destinations' brand personality: the case of the Algarve. International Journal of Culture Tourism and Hospitality Research, 9(2).
Mason, M. C. & Moretti, A. (2015). Antecedents and Moderators of golf tourists' behavioural intentions: An empirical study in a Mediterranean destination. EuroMed Journal of Business, 10 (3):338-359.
Murphy, B. & Wright, A. (2014). Ireland: The Golfer's Paradise-The Tourism Challenge? Conference Paper THRIC At CIT.
