Tue Jul 6 2010

Golf Industry Central celebrates 2nd Birthday

It has now been two years to the day since Golf Industry Central went online providing industry news, jobs, and operational advice to Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia. Our goal has always been to help keep you informed on what is happening in our diverse industry and to hopefully propagate and share ideas from all over the worldwide golf industry. I'm a strong believer that the web is going to play a much bigger part in our industry over the coming years. Sites such as Facebook, Linked In and Twitter are only a few of the major forms of social and business networking that have taken the world stage in recent times with more to follow. These sites are central to some of the biggest Social Media strategies being used by companies around the world. Our golf industry is still segmented with many people not accessing information online and still relying only on print media. Print media will not be dying out any time soon, but online media lets us receive the information much faster. We are in a digital evolutionary period at the moment and Golf Industry Central is enjoying being a small part of it. (Related story: A corporate guide for social media)

Thank you

Thanks for your continued support by visiting our site, contributing stories and helping connect our industry. A special thanks to our Affiliates and Business Partners for supporting us with free information to use on our site and our new online magazine, Golf Industry Central. David Newbery has joined u as Senior Writer for the magazine and has been a tremendous help in getting some great insight to our industry.

Your individual encouragement has made this journey so much more enjoyable. Part of our original plan was to seek and relay as much industry relevant and generally interesting stories (that you don't always read locally) and to get it to you as quickly as possible. That is why many of our stories are linked backed to the original content. We would need several staff to rewrite everything we find. We would rather give you a larger selection of stories to choose from.

There are so many people and companies in the Australian/New Zealand/SE Asia golf industry that don't fit into any categories supported by our governing bodies. Golf Industry Central hopefully also provides some way to connect these people together wherever possible. (Just let us know what you are looking for.)

How we can help

The idea for Golf Industry Central stemmed from 18 years working for two of the biggest golf course management companies in the world - American Golf Corporation and Clubcorp. There was a free-flowing "Intranet" being used by these companies that allowed the sharing of best operational practices and general information throughout the company. If there was ever any need for help, you were able to find it or someone who could give you with the required information quickly.  

Golf Industry Central specialises in golf operations and we have a huge library of information at our disposal that you can access, either free via our site, or for a fee through our consultancy services. We are here to help golfing facilities improve their operations and to become a viable entity to serve their respective markets. Consultants generally can be very expensive to hire, since you may have to pay for travel as well as their time to advise. In an effort to reduce overhead costs, we can conduct much of this work for you via phone and email. Some of our services are being systemised as another way of reducing ongoing costs in accessing valuable operational advice. As a celebration "thank-you" we are offering throughout July a FREE introductory 30-minute operational and/or marketing consultation. Drop me a line with a good time for us to chat and discuss what issues you may be experiencing.

Our progression

Over the past year Golf Industry Central attended several industry conferences and seminars throughout the region. (We have now received an invitation to present at the 2010 NZ GMA Conference being held in Wellington this August.) This took us to USA, Malaysia, Singapore, Perth and a few locally based. It was a great opportunity to catch up with many of our readers and to help build a better network of contacts. Heading into early 2010 Golf Industry Central took on several consultancy projects that took us interstate along with a major project being undertaken up here in Brisbane. December 2009 also marked the release of our first online magazine, Golf Industry Central.
Weve been growing momentum with the bi-monthly publication and appreciate all the help from advertisers and contributors whom have given us information to publish. Without them we could not do the magazine!

Thanks again for your support and please feel free to send through any stories or links to us that you would like to share with the rest of the readers on our site. Please also call me anytime if you have any questions about your particular operation.

Overall the industry outlook looks much better, but still some uncertainty in the economy and with continued operational issues at the course level, we hope Golf Industry Central can serve as a great portal to find the information you are looking for.  We are here to support you in achieving your facility's operational goals. Golf Industry Central – News, jobs, and operational advice.

To read the new Golf Industry Central online magazine look below and click on it to enjoy it in full size.