According to Martin Dempster in The Scotsman, The Scottish Golf Union is urging clubs to nominate unsung heroes for a new award to be presented at a ceremony in February.
"We've seen so many fantastic examples of volunteering at clubs across the country that we felt it was important to recognise the commitment of these individuals," said Andy Salmon, Scottish Golf Development Manager. "Like many sports, golf relies on the contribution of so many people at a local level and so we are delighted to launch this new award."
The Scottish Golf Volunteer of the Year will be announced at the XOS Scottish Golf Awards in Glasgow.
"This will be a fantastic occasion and it's important that we honour golf club members involved in the grass roots of the game as well as those performing at the highest level," added Salmon.
"We look forward to receiving many nominations from clubs and while there can only be one winner, it will be great to recognise all our volunteers' outstanding efforts through this award."
The leading five nominees selected by a judging panel will be invited to attend the event, with the winner being announced on the night.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Award For Ayr Racecourse
Ayr Racecourse has been voted Racecourse of the Year 2010 for Scotland and the North East by The Racegoer’s Club - the seventh consecutive year the course has won this coveted award.
Ayr's great run began back in 2004, the first full year current owners Alan Macdonald and Richard Johnstone were in charge - and Scotland’s premier track has won the award every year since.
Huge improvements have taken place at the track over the past seven years, including the new £4.5 million Ayrshire Suite, the introduction of new fine dining restaurants including the Roman Warrior and the Chancellor Carvery. And there’s also been huge changes made to the Parade Ring and Winners Enclosure, plus the creation of the Champagne Lawn and Gardens - the perfect place to be on a hot summer day!
The honour from The Racegoers Club is highly valued by the team at Ayr, as it comes from a Club whose 6,500 members are all active racegoers. Ayr has now won the award 17 times since 1990.
Lindsey Smith, Sales and Marketing Manager at Ayr Racecourse said: “We are so pleased to have won this award, which underlines our status as one of the top racecourses in the UK. To have won the award seven times is a great feather in our cap, and we thank everyone at the Racegoers Club for voting for us.”
Western House Hotel is adjacent, indeed integral, to the racecourse and is also going from strength to strength. The hotel has recently switched its online booking system to Bookassist increasing the control of offers, rates and availability to visitors to Ayrshire racecourse meeting
Ayr's great run began back in 2004, the first full year current owners Alan Macdonald and Richard Johnstone were in charge - and Scotland’s premier track has won the award every year since.
Huge improvements have taken place at the track over the past seven years, including the new £4.5 million Ayrshire Suite, the introduction of new fine dining restaurants including the Roman Warrior and the Chancellor Carvery. And there’s also been huge changes made to the Parade Ring and Winners Enclosure, plus the creation of the Champagne Lawn and Gardens - the perfect place to be on a hot summer day!
The honour from The Racegoers Club is highly valued by the team at Ayr, as it comes from a Club whose 6,500 members are all active racegoers. Ayr has now won the award 17 times since 1990.
Lindsey Smith, Sales and Marketing Manager at Ayr Racecourse said: “We are so pleased to have won this award, which underlines our status as one of the top racecourses in the UK. To have won the award seven times is a great feather in our cap, and we thank everyone at the Racegoers Club for voting for us.”
Western House Hotel is adjacent, indeed integral, to the racecourse and is also going from strength to strength. The hotel has recently switched its online booking system to Bookassist increasing the control of offers, rates and availability to visitors to Ayrshire racecourse meeting
Saturday, December 4, 2010
The Homecoming Gathering Debacle
A more reasoned and perhaps fully detailed analysis is required but surely our office was not the only tourism and hospitality based business that watched on with incredulity at the excuses put forward by the First Minister and Mike Russell regarding the Gathering event last year. Lending money with no guarantees, with no credit checking and most obviously no real discussion with anyone outside of the "Yes, this is a Great Event Alex" crowd. There was no general belief beyond the inner wheel that The Gathering was ever going to be the major economic saviour that they had outlined ahead of the date. Not all criticism was retrospective and it certainly was not just cynics or political opportunists knocking it.
The even had displacement written all over it and the fact that it was a private venture with no liability should have precluded such disasters. The role of Scottish Enterprise, Event Scotland and the government in "underwriting" this private event is truly galling for so many operators who even then were struggling to secure finance from banks who were doubting the viability of their restaurants, hotels, attractions.
Once again the main issue that is clearly flagged up here is the Scottish public bodies inability to determine whether tourism and hospitality is to be private or public sector lead. Public bail outs of flagship events, ongoing losses for winter celebrations, absorbing of loss making public private partnerships. When is it going to change for real?
Perpetuation will simply continue to lead to a host of messed up, mixed up projects which will continue to cost the public purse money and fail to contribute positively to the private sector development of our product.
There is a Scottish Tourism Leadership Forum being held in Perth on the 9th of December. It is to be hoped that the group will have the courage to look towards radical review, overhaul and redistribution of decision making, strategy and policy. We cannot simply go on adjusting targets, distribution vehicles and minor organisational changes.
The even had displacement written all over it and the fact that it was a private venture with no liability should have precluded such disasters. The role of Scottish Enterprise, Event Scotland and the government in "underwriting" this private event is truly galling for so many operators who even then were struggling to secure finance from banks who were doubting the viability of their restaurants, hotels, attractions.
Once again the main issue that is clearly flagged up here is the Scottish public bodies inability to determine whether tourism and hospitality is to be private or public sector lead. Public bail outs of flagship events, ongoing losses for winter celebrations, absorbing of loss making public private partnerships. When is it going to change for real?
Perpetuation will simply continue to lead to a host of messed up, mixed up projects which will continue to cost the public purse money and fail to contribute positively to the private sector development of our product.
There is a Scottish Tourism Leadership Forum being held in Perth on the 9th of December. It is to be hoped that the group will have the courage to look towards radical review, overhaul and redistribution of decision making, strategy and policy. We cannot simply go on adjusting targets, distribution vehicles and minor organisational changes.
Hotel Revaluations
The owners of Westerwood Hotel and Resort near Cumbernauld has cut the property valuation by more than 25% to £16.5m. According to The Herald the company have written down its valuation by £6 million following a second successive year of losses.
Latest accounts for Westerwood Hotel Limited show the valuation of the land and buildings at the Cumbernauld venue was reduced to £16.5m at the end of the financial year to January 3 from £22m at the start of the period.The company said the adjustment followed an independent valuation of its freehold properties by Christie & Co surveyors, completed in July. Westerwood Hotel has 148 bedrooms and an 18-hole championship golf course.
The company made a pre-tax loss of £3.2m in the year to January 3, compared with a loss of £6.2m in the preceding year and turnover increased by 2.3% annually, to £5.9m.
The business of revaluation, and knock on impacts, is one that we may seek some expert comment in the New Year, so if you know anyone who would be willing to give us an overview of the Scottish Hotel market place please let us know. We did find an interesting PDF (if you understand Discounted Cash Flows and how to balance "Distressed Values") which may shed some light if you're a bit worried about your own property value. Read "The Art and Science of Hotel Valuation in an Economic Downturn"
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Integrating Your Online Marketing Tools
Increased integration of on-line marketing is becoming more and more important and quite rightly. And it's not just about saving time it's about practically using the tools you have a t your disposal to reach the audience you're targetting.
There is now an opportunity like never before to reach out to your current client base and utilse them through their own socail medai to promote yur products and services and it's not rocket science either. No marketing degrees, not £400 a day charges, just common sense good practice.
An example I hear you say?
England 2018 - Yes or No?
Well we all know thanks to Panorama that England are bidding to host the 2018 World Cup.... as one of our clients, we thought "Wonder what The Tartan Army think of the bid?" That was two hours ago...
Now we know that from the hundreds of responses received on-line that the opinion is actually split a lot closer than we thought it would be. The question and answer however are irrelevant, it's the methodology that's important.
The Poll Question...
Using ConstantContact we first of all created a Poll question - the email marketing package, which we've been using for must be a decade, is not only perfect for e-newsletters but also for guest questionnaires and in this instance a poll question - "Do You Want England to win the 2018 World Cup Bid"
The Blog Article...
Once the poll question was created it was uploaded to the Tartan Army blog.
Took about two minutes to do by dropping the piece of code given to us by Constant Contact into the blog editor.
We wrote a little bit of text and a headline and some tags for the search engines.
The Blog article was published and it was now live online.
The Facebook Page...
We then took the link to the Blog article and put it up on the Tartan Army Facebook page - which had just over 3500 users at the beginning of the process - and encouraged users to vote.
The link took them directly to the vote which was now live and hosted on the blog page.
The aim was not only to target the current Facebook users but build more "likes" from the articles around it.
The one thing for sure is that by tomorrow morning we'll know exactly how many more signed up and how many viewed the article.
The E-Newsletter...
Going back to ConstantContact we then created a quick and simple email which went out to more than 3000 on the mailing list - not only can we track how many were sent but we can also identify how many were opened, how many were duff addresses and most importantly the level of click throughs to every link.
Also worth noting, the option for those receiving the email to post it straight to their social media pages and the links in the email themselves encouraging visits to the Blog and the Facebook pages.
Developing Your Contacts...
Remember you need to take every opportunity to promote your on-line distribution channels and make sure you cross promote all ways of keeping in touch - for example note (on the left) that on the Tartan Army Facebook you can choose to Join their List using the ConstantContact app.
Building all your lists requires ongoing time and management but with the right direction you can achieve some stunning results with just some focussed professional support.
What About Your Business?
There is little doubt that we could all do with an additional marketing push in the coming twelve months. Your on-line marketing strategy is becoming increasingly affordable and easier to understand. Hospitality businesses across Scotland can communicate more effectively and efficiently than ever before and with some simple planning of your marketing strategies (on and off line) you can deliver some stunning results of your own.
Imagine the above was fully integrated with your online booking engine using Promo Codes to deliver targeted guests to specific dates and promotions....
Find out more information
There is now an opportunity like never before to reach out to your current client base and utilse them through their own socail medai to promote yur products and services and it's not rocket science either. No marketing degrees, not £400 a day charges, just common sense good practice.
An example I hear you say?
England 2018 - Yes or No?
Well we all know thanks to Panorama that England are bidding to host the 2018 World Cup.... as one of our clients, we thought "Wonder what The Tartan Army think of the bid?" That was two hours ago...
Now we know that from the hundreds of responses received on-line that the opinion is actually split a lot closer than we thought it would be. The question and answer however are irrelevant, it's the methodology that's important.
The Poll Question...
Using ConstantContact we first of all created a Poll question - the email marketing package, which we've been using for must be a decade, is not only perfect for e-newsletters but also for guest questionnaires and in this instance a poll question - "Do You Want England to win the 2018 World Cup Bid"
The Blog Article...
Once the poll question was created it was uploaded to the Tartan Army blog.
Took about two minutes to do by dropping the piece of code given to us by Constant Contact into the blog editor.
We wrote a little bit of text and a headline and some tags for the search engines.
The Blog article was published and it was now live online.
We then took the link to the Blog article and put it up on the Tartan Army Facebook page - which had just over 3500 users at the beginning of the process - and encouraged users to vote.
The link took them directly to the vote which was now live and hosted on the blog page.
The aim was not only to target the current Facebook users but build more "likes" from the articles around it.
The one thing for sure is that by tomorrow morning we'll know exactly how many more signed up and how many viewed the article.
The E-Newsletter...
Going back to ConstantContact we then created a quick and simple email which went out to more than 3000 on the mailing list - not only can we track how many were sent but we can also identify how many were opened, how many were duff addresses and most importantly the level of click throughs to every link.
Also worth noting, the option for those receiving the email to post it straight to their social media pages and the links in the email themselves encouraging visits to the Blog and the Facebook pages.
Developing Your Contacts...
Remember you need to take every opportunity to promote your on-line distribution channels and make sure you cross promote all ways of keeping in touch - for example note (on the left) that on the Tartan Army Facebook you can choose to Join their List using the ConstantContact app.
Building all your lists requires ongoing time and management but with the right direction you can achieve some stunning results with just some focussed professional support.
What About Your Business?
There is little doubt that we could all do with an additional marketing push in the coming twelve months. Your on-line marketing strategy is becoming increasingly affordable and easier to understand. Hospitality businesses across Scotland can communicate more effectively and efficiently than ever before and with some simple planning of your marketing strategies (on and off line) you can deliver some stunning results of your own.
Imagine the above was fully integrated with your online booking engine using Promo Codes to deliver targeted guests to specific dates and promotions....
Find out more information
- Contact us on 01292 521404or email us at The Edge Online Marketing
- Try ConstantContact for Free
- Find out more about Bookassist Online Booking Engine
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