Monday 15 March 2010

Fife Golf Alliance Consultants Appointed

Edinburgh based BRS have been appointed to investigate the merits of a new Golf Alliance in Fife. The project which has been commissioned by Fife Council will undertake an audit of the Fife Golf Product and research and investigate the viability of setting up a Fife Golf Alliance. The work is planned in two phases, the first to assess the opportunity, the second, if positive, to help set up and hand over management of a Fife Golf Alliance.
You can get more information on the project's objectives at the Fife Golf site set up by BRS.

We don't know how this fits in with other plans about including the SGU Framework which has been floating about for a couple of years. We do know that Golf Tourism Scotland produced their own structure plan a couple of years back which was aimed at creating strong communication links at natioanl, regional and local level. There's little doubt that increased communication is required not only between golf tourism related businesses in each area but also between regions. The duplication of resources, expenditure and marketing crossover continues to be wasteful and in the end analysis detrimental to the industry. More joined up thinking at a national level with clear structures and responsibilities would be nice.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It really is quite staggering how our golf industry continues to fail to complete things. We have lots of good ideas, we have numerous meetings to set targets, we select consultants yet nothing ever actually gets done.

Anonymous said...

Hi Anon', there really are no surprises any more. I followed with interest some of the work carried out by Golf Tourism Scotland, a lot of which was funded by members and Scot Ent. I now see that BRS have been commissioned (about £30k worth) to carry out work in Fife to look at a Fife Golf Alliance. Check out the GTS reports and see what they suggested four years ago.Their industry review recs are clear and to the point. Its the lack of continuity in the public bodies that fuels these ongoing wastes of money. Each new civil servant thinks they have a great idea and commissions a review without any referal to what may have gone before. One of the GTS aims and objectives was to highlight lessons learnt for the benefit of the industry, sadly this does not seem to apply any more.

Anonymous said...

As we move closer to school exam time can someone find the GTS report referred to so we can "compare and contrast" whatever this new consultancy company come up with.

SkinScience said...

I think part of the problem is that GTS fails to engage with golf courses, I've been to meetings - in Fife, where there were a handful of representatives of golf courses there, lots of hotels and tour companies. Very few golf courses, that leads to golf courses not understadning what is going on and subsequently things like this fife golf alliance popping up. It is a double edged sword as if you look at the people involved in running golf clubs, they are far less dynamic and marketing orientated than those who run hotels, tour companies and commercial courses like Kingsbarns, but I don't think bringing in consultants who set up a website which has no discussions on its forum and who go to the gts for help, which will again mean a lack of golf club involvement, seems pretty simple to me.
Rather than spend the money on consultants, get GTS round the table with all the Fife courses and sort something out. This will be another waste of taxpayer money on consultants.