The British Columbia Golf Marketing Alliance (BCGMA) is a cooperative marketing alliance whose primary mandate is to grow golf tourism in British Columbia.
BCGMA stakeholders include 74 featured golf courses, regional golf destination marketing alliances, destination marketing organizations, Destination British Columbia, British Columbia Golf, and as of September 2015 every provincial golf course 9 holes or larger (274 of them) are included in their online golf directory!
Highlights of our 2015 & 2016 Marketing Programs include:
- 8 Featured Golf Regions
- 74 Featured Golf Courses (37% increase from 54 in 2015)
- 39% grown on our provincial golf tourism website GolfinBritishColumbia.com in 2015, and traffic is up a further 91% for the 2016 marketing cycle.
- Over 2.76 Million Impressions generated through a $90,000 cooperative marketing program in 2015, and a new $118,000 program being implemented right now for 2016
- Award winning database marketing to: 14, 754
- Central Reservations sales increases of 39% in 2015 to $403,434, and are up 33% YTD for 2016!
We are delighted with the success of the BCGMA cooperative marketing program in the last 4 years and have every reason to believe that 2016 is shaping up to be a watershed year for golf tourism in British Columbia…
- Industry consultation is taking place for the possible introduction of a Destination Marketing Fee on golf course green fees thereby generating long term sustainable marketing resources for the British Columbia golf industry.
- On January 29th, the BCGMA was awarded $250,000 in Co-operative advertising funding from Destination British Columbia. This includes a provincial allocation as well as leverage for 8 regional golf destination marketing organizations in the province, including some that have never received provincial leverage. This is great cause for celebration for golf tourism in British Columbia and many thanks again to the AGA-BC as our legal entity in this process.
- On that same day, three British Columbia golf resorts were included in a national application to Destination Canada, together with two from AB, two from Ontario, one from Quebec and one from Cape Breton, for matching “Connecting America” funds and have since received notification of $250,000 in Co-operative advertising funding from Destination Canada.
Cheers to a rising tide for golf tourism in British Columbia as it will lift all golf industry boats!
Trisha Larsen
Director of Marketing
British Columbia Golf Marketing Alliance
