Travel was among the many segments of golf that boomed when the pandemic started to abate. In fact, the rush to take to the air, sea and road with one’s clubs was so great that industry insiders took to describing the development as “revenge travel.” It was people’s way of getting back at all the closures and mandates that restricted their abilities to roam for what seemed to many voyagers like an eternity.
Some two years after that phrase was first coined, the movement continues. And it has those in the travel realm feeling pretty good about what 2024 will bring.
“Revenge travel definitely remains a thing,” said Gordon Dalgleish, the president of Perry Golf, a leading golf tour operator. “Especially with people 60 years of age and older. They have a defined time window for travel. They lost a couple of years of being able to do so, and they still have their money. They want to travel, they want to do it well and they want to do it more often.”
One type of travel that likely will keep growing in popularity in 2024 is luxury golf cruises.
“Cruises remain a small part of our business,” Dalgleish said. “But it is a very solid part and growing nicely. People who like that kind of travel are very loyal to it and very enthusiastic about it. And they returned to cruising very quickly.”
Golf cruising also lends itself nicely to couples trips, whether both travelers play golf or not.
Golf cruises are Kalos Golf’s métier as well as its primary business, and Casey Oliver, the vice president of marketing for that very upscale, Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based concern, has noticed a steady uptick in business as well.
“We are already 95 percent full for 2024 and will have about 300 more passengers than we did in 2023,” he said. “And the 23 trips we have organized for 2025 are the most we have ever had. Actually, it’s more than double the number of cruises we offered when I joined Kalos in 2012.”
There is an ease of travel that people like about a golf cruise, Oliver added, and that is one of the strongest draws for customers – and one of the things that induces them to keep coming back. “They only have to pack and unpack once,” he said. “They only have to write one check.”
As far as new destinations for 2024, Dalgleish and Oliver cite Southeast Asia in general, and Vietnam in particular, as places that are gaining popularity.
“Portugal, too,” Dalgleish said. “People like the Algarve and the courses there. They also like Lisbon a lot as a place to tour, and there are some good new courses both north and south of the city.”
As interesting as those destinations may be, Dalgleish said, nothing approaches the popularity of Scotland and Ireland among golf travelers.
“They remain the places most players want to go,” he said.
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