Saving golf courses from business troubles

Abstract

Utilizing a discrete choice experiment, this study attempts to provide improved knowledge regarding how golf tourists arrive at complex trade-offs between different golfing constraints and resort to diverse negotiation strategies to attenuate the effect of those constraining factors. With a study sample of Korean golf tourists, we find that respondents place distinctive weights on several golf course attributes representing various types of golfing constraints to attain the greatest enjoyment. Among a range of barriers to golf trip participation, golf tourists place the highest importance on structural constraints associated with limited personal time resources and inadequate access to golf courses. The study results substantiate golf tourists' heterogeneous preferences for negotiation strategies, which are dependent upon their levels of golf specialization. Multiple management suggestions are developed to help golf course professionals adapt to the gradually challenging business environment.