Vital Signs, february 12, 2016

     Care to predict the number of foreign golfers who’ll be teeing off in Turkey this year? As a result of terrorist bombings that killed more than 100 vacationers in Istanbul and Ankara in recent months, tourists have, understandably, become reluctant to visit Syria’s next-door neighbor. “Bookings were already slow for 2016 because of a combination of what’s going on in the region and the attacks in Paris last year,” a tour operator told the New York Times, “but now, I expect them to be at a standstill.” Of course, Turkey has a long golf season, and political tensions throughout the Middle East may soon ease. But there’s a lesson to be learned here about golf industries that depend almost exclusively on revenues generated by itinerant golfers. The flow of tourists can never be guaranteed, and it can be blocked by circumstances outside anyone’s control. When it comes to creating a sustainable golf business, nothing succeeds like a strong base of resident golfers.

     The U.S. Open has brought a measure of world-wide fame to Chambers Bay, not to mention increased revenues. In the months after last June’s event, golfers from outside the state of Washington played 41 percent of the rounds at the municipal course in metropolitan Seattle -- “more than double the historical average,” according to Golf Advisor -- and at significantly higher prices. “The beauty of Chambers Bay and Pierce County were on display for the world to see,” reports the course’s general manager. “We look forward to maintaining the momentum in the upcoming golf season.” The momentum may actually be increased, because in 2016 Chambers Bay intends to add $50 to its non-resident greens fee, raising it from $225 to $275.

     Cuba welcomed a record-breaking number of international tourists last year, and the smart money says it’ll break the record this year. Fidel Castro’s socialist paradise attracted more than 3.5 million foreign visitors in 2015, an increase of more than 17 percent over the number posted in 2014, and it still can’t count a significant number of U.S. vacationers or even one destination-worthy golf course. Last year, the largest number of Cuba’s foreign visitors came from Canada (1.3 million), Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Only 145,000 U.S. travelers dropped in, but their numbers are growing fast: The count in 2015 represents a 79 percent increase over the one in 2014. In fact, the anticipated growth in traffic from the United States has apparently given rise to a “visit-now” mentality among some world travelers. In a cartoonish illustration of how everyday people from all over the world view U.S. business, Xinhua writes that many international travelers are “rushing to visit the island” because they fear that “a full-blown American onslaught will soon alter the country's natural landscape with fast-food franchises and chain convenience stores.”

     For more than a year, falling oil prices and the gradual disappearance of deep-pocketed foreign buyers have been putting the squeeze on Dubai’s real-estate markets, and now the vice chairman of the emirate’s largest lender has issued a warning to the region’s real-estate developers: The bubble may burst. “I’d be very cautious, whether running an asset management company or a development company,” Hesham Al Qassim of Emirates NBD PJSC said in a comment published by Arabian Business. Al Qassim is also the CEO of Wasl Asset Management Group, a residential and commercial developer with two golf properties in its portfolio: Emirates Golf Club, the home of the Omega Dubai Desert Classic, and Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club. He believes that “those who are mindful of the reality around them will manage, but those who stretch themselves with billions worth of projects won’t.”

     Hesham Al Qassim may think the financial sky is falling, but the CEO of the company that’s building the Donald Trump-branded golf properties in Dubai doesn’t necessarily agree. Ziad El Chaar, the managing director of Damac Properties, told a British newspaper that he’ll “go on TV naked and resign” if the bottom really does fall out of the emirate’s property markets this year. That being said, El Chaar appears to have some worries about the value of Trump’s name in Dubai, especially now that the Candidate has vowed to ban Muslims from entering the United States if he becomes president. Citing a report by the Sunday Times, What’s On magazine says that Damac removed billboards that promoted its relationship with Trump and replaced them only after “bitter legal wrangling between El Chaar and lawyers for the American tycoon.” The magazine quotes an analyst as saying of Trump, “Nobody admires him anymore. Fewer want to live in a home with his name on the front door.”