Driving home Open Golf opportunity for Kent
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by
Kevin Redsull
According to golf management consultant Michael Lovett,
Kent - and east Kent in particular - will have a gold-plated
opportunity to market the area as a favoured destination for
higher-spend tourists next year.
That opportunity is, of course, the return of the Open
Championship in July 2011 to Royal St George's Golf Club.
The Championship was last held at Sandwich in 2003 and drew 183,000
visitors, boosting the east Kent economy to the tune of nearly £18
million.
St George's lies next door to Prince's Golf Club at Sandwich
Bay, where Mr Lovett was recently installed as chief executive.
Prince's is to co-host the British Amateur Championship with the
Royal Cinque Ports at Deal in 2013, and both those clubs will also
act as final qualifying venues for the 2011 Open.
Mr Lovett, who works for International golf management company
Troon Golf, believes that east Kent has yet to capitalise on the
massive potential the area offers as a popular destination for
overseas golf lovers.
"We need to drive more tourists into east Kent - it's a great
area for golf," he said. "We have three championship courses
sitting right next to each other (Royal St George's, Prince's and
Royal Cinque Ports), plus Open qualifying courses such as
Littlestone and North Foreland nearby.
"The port of Dover is 20 minutes away, we are only
one-and-a-half hours from Gatwick, there is a high-speed train
service from London, apart from the golf, Deal and Sandwich are
beautiful towns and Canterbury is only half an hour away. As far as
I am concerned, tourists should be pouring into this area, and one
of the keys to achieving that is the return of the Open in
2011.
"For one week, the area will benefit from millions of people
around the world watching the championship on television."
He said Troon will be working with tour operators, ferry
companies, organisations such as Visit Kent and the local councils
and tourist boards - "whoever and whatever it takes" - to attract
more visitors.
He points to the success of Southport in the north-west of
England in marketing themselves as "England's Golf Coast",
based around the Open championship courses at Royal Birkdale, Royal
Liverpool and Royal Lytham St Annes.
"Southport does it very professionally, they market the area
worldwide. They have representatives at all the big travel
conferences, all the golf shows.
"They have a specific golf officer working for all the local
councils and his job is to get journalists continually writing
about the area as a golfing destination in newspaper and magazine
articles. We are not talking about reinventing the wheel here, it
just needs a few good people who have the necessary drive and
determination, and in my short time in the area I have already met
enough people who I think possess those qualities.
"Now it's Troon Golf's job to help them capitalise on the Open
coming back here.
"If we get everything right through the next 18 months, we will
be able to enjoy the Open week in July 2011 and then build on it
for the future. But it's got to be a team effort."
Wednesday, February 17 2010
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