Vital Signs, february 21, 2014

     After three consecutive years of declines in attendance, the crowds were a bit larger at this year’s Golf Industry Show. The event, held earlier this month in Orlando, Florida, attracted 14,147 people, an increase of 8 percent over the number recorded in 2013. The show’s audience had been shrinking since 2011, when 14,781 people came through the gates. In terms of attendance, the show’s high-water mark came in 2007, when it attracted 23,109 people.

     Like their U.S. counterparts, golf clubs in the United Kingdom are populated mostly by people who are going gray. According to a survey by Sky Sports News, the dominant age group at more than 80 percent of the U.K.’s clubs consists of people over 50, while only 1 percent of the clubs claim a membership dominated by people aged between 31 and 40. The survey, which polled 254 clubs, also determined that 70 percent have lost members over the past five years.

     The United States has roughly three times as many golfers as Japan -- 24.5 million versus 8 million -- but the Japanese spend more on apparel, according to the U.S./Japan World Golf Market Report. When apparel and equipments sales are combined, however, U.S. purchases amounted to $5.1 billion in 2013, while Japanese purchases totaled $3.7 billion.

     When it comes to deferred capital investment, the past inevitably catches up with municipal golf operations. To quote an ancient television commercial: You can pay me now, or you can pay me later. This is where the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota currently finds itself, as its six golf properties require an estimated $34 million in improvements to remain competitive in their markets. Jim Keegan of Golf Convergence, who was hired to analyze the collection, has advised the city to close one of the deteriorating properties and spiff up the others, but where is the money supposed to come from? Although a master plan for renovations is currently being developed, the city may be forced to seek help from the private sector.

     Golf developers looking to make a mark in India might be wise to avoid Goa. The state reportedly attracts more than 2.5 million vacationers annually, but its coastline is suffering as a result. In 2011, a report by India’s National Institute of Oceanography concluded that Goa’s coastal waters were unsafe for bathing and fishing. And Down To Earth, citing a government study issued in 2012, reports that “the state’s beaches are degrading, groundwater table is going down, and there is lack of sewerage and solid waste management.” India’s tourism officials have been eagerly touting Goa’s golf-development prospects for years, but the tourist traffic will disappear without the state’s famous, welcoming beaches.

     Chinese tourists are the world’s biggest spenders, and recent trends suggest that more than 100 million of them will be globe-hopping this year. Agence France Presse reports that 97 million Chinese traveled to other nations in 2013, a nearly 17 percent increase from the 83 million who went abroad in 2012. To put these numbers into perspective, the nation had just 29 million outbound travelers in 2004. And nowadays, they don’t travel cheap. “Chinese tourists spend so much abroad,” a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the news agency, “that some foreigners are calling us ‘walking wallets.’” The amount they spent in 2013 isn’t available, but it amounted to $102 billion in 2012, and AFP asserts that they were “almost certain to have surpassed that record last year.”

     For years, Croatia’s tourism officials have been trying in vain to persuade developers to add dozens of courses to the nation’s inventory. Now they may have some ammunition to help spark golf construction: The nation attracted 12.4 million tourists last year, a record number and 5.5 percent more than it welcomed in 2012. Croatia may not yet generate enough tourist traffic to support even 10 more courses, but it can probably use more than the five it currently has.

     The U.S. military operates 194 golf properties, according to a count by Mother Jones. The vast majority are located on air force, army, and navy bases in the United States, though roughly 30 can be found at installations in Germany, Japan, South Korea, and seven other nations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the Caribbean.