For love of the game, not place

Yeoh Siew Hoon meets a traveller who chooses where he goes by the game, not by the place.

Last week, I wrote a piece on "Destination branding: Legacy thinking still prevailing?" with Brett Henry, vice president of marketing, Abacus International arguing that travellers of today do not decide based on destination, but by interests.

So who should I sit next to on a flight from Haikou but a man, I guess to be in his early 60s, who doesn't care where he goes as long as he gets to swing his clubs.

He and his golf buddies travel almost every other month in search of the game. They had booked a five-day package from a local ground agent in Hainan which allowed them to play in Haikou and Sanya.

The land package cost them about RMB8,000 each, inclusive of accommodation, meals (excluding dinner) and green fees. They booked the airfare on Jetstar Asia separately and online.

It's their second golfing trip to Hainan. The first time, they booked the ground arrangements through a Singapore travel agency and the package cost about S$300 more, he told me.

"What we do when we get to a place is we look around for a local travel agency and then book our next trip locally," he said. "We save money that way."

Aren't you worried about risks in case it's a fly-by-night local agent? "We take our chances, we do our research and so far, it's worked out okay," he said.

On this trip, he was with a group of six. The leader of the pack is a medical doctor who does all his research and planning online and then recommends places and prices to his buddies. "He's crazy about golf, he'll go anywhere for the game," my new-found friend told me.

They've played most places in Asia, he said. The best places for him are in northern China where the weather is cooler. "It's so hot in Haikou," he complained.

Isn't there a golf course - a golf Mecca - that he and his buddies aspire to play in, like St Andrews for example, I asked, showing off my ignorance of the game. I understand that only those who don't know golf talk about St Andrews - at least that's why my golfing friends tell me.

"No," he said. "We don't care where we go, as long as we can play golf, eat good food and have massage. Decent one, that is," he stressed.

This is where Europe, Australia and North America can't match Asia, he said. "You can't get a good, cheap massage in those places and you can't get caddies to carry your stuff."

Meet a new kind of Asian customer - driven by interest, price, information and convenience - where the world has become his playground or, in this case, his golf course.