I love this time of year. Sure, the new year is always exciting but I enjoy treating the Club Study findings as a journal to look back on. It makes me appreciate the wide range of topics we cover. Thank you to all whom contributed and filled out surveys in 2024. The more that participate the richer the data! We have a great stream of inquiries and have gotten to a point where there are perennial questions and topics but there are new and interesting queries coming in all the time. Here are our top International 5 topics in data from 2024... 5. Spring Weather - March 2024, in the UK, was in the top 20% of wettest Marches and April was even wetter coming in at the sixth wettest April of the last 189 years. The theme rolled into May with rainfall figures coming in well above average and some weather stations having had more than double the average rainfall. This very wet spring follows on from a wetter than average winter...
4. Sustainability - We are seeing many clubs take action to become more energy conscience and efficient by supplying EV charging stations, changing to LED lighting fixtures and so on...
With an effort to reduce the amount of plastic water bottles being used whilst elevating service, many clubs have installed fillable stations and in some cases around the world, clubs are supplying bottles to their members...
3. Marketing & Communication - Communication frequency is increasing in every industry you can think of which means grabbing someone's attention is also becoming more difficult. Apps with an active push notification schedule, or in some cases direct SMS and texting, are leading the communication front. Some have gotten rid of the typical newsletter, some have kept it and added new communication avenues. Where will this go in 2025? This could just be the fastest evolving topic in our industry and will be a topic we delve into further this year...
What about websites? With all of the app talk it can be easy to forget about website utilisation and value. Well, clubs haven't forgotten and seem to be active in keeping them fresh. We have seen some new companies emerge in the industry that specialise in photography, populating the forward facing sites and keeping their marketing current and appealing...
2. Membership Strength & Wait-List Adjustments - Roughly 1 in 2 clubs are operating with a wait-list. Half have had that list grow and half have seen it remain or decline. An interesting divide, but there's a little more to this. How many have had a wait-list and decided to increase their membership cap? Or perhaps decrease their membership with the intention to increase access and free up tee times?
One thing is for certain, we are seeing wait-lists, not only in the EU and UK, but around the world getting more active, leveraging their position. This includes introducing or increasing costs to get on the list, allowing limited access or partial benefits to the club when on the list, welcoming prospects to a prelim membership category before granting full access and more...
1. Rising Costs - When Club Managers were polled late last year on the biggest concerns they had heading into this new year, rising costs came in second. Now, you could argue that these top five topics will jockey positions every year rather than be some sort of anomaly for 2025 but I don't think there was a club anywhere that hasn't felt the higher-than-average squeeze of rising costs. It has been exorbitant, regardless of your location....
And the top tactic to combat this pinch? Increasing dues/subscriptions....
Many clubs will look at the CPI when determining how much to increase dues/subs. Let's see how that has compared over the last 3 years in the EU...
2024 (approx)= 2.4%
2023 = 6.4%
2022 = 9.2%
This is an accumulated avg of 18% over a 3 year run or a whopping 6% per year! Obviously 2022 was off the charts, in fact it was the highest ever recorded. For some comparison and context, from 2014 - 2021 the avg HICP / CPI was 1.2% per year.
How are dues/subs increases shaping up for 2025 you ask? Not much of a let up. There are many clubs that are wisely making up for lost time and a lack of increases as well. Anecdotally, there aren't many clubs that will have escaped a 10% increase in a single year over the last four years...
Well, that's all folks, thanks for tuning in to our review! We hope it was insightful. Remember to forward any industry questions you may be curious about and we will toss it to our group in short order - ryan@clubstudy. Cheers to a great 2025!
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