News: La Cala Resort awards Top Golf Tour Operator

Spain’s largest golf complex, La Cala Resort, has presented an award to the U.K.-based company Golfbreaks.com in recognition of its achievement of bringing more golfers to the resort in 2009 than any of its competitors. The award is the first in a series that will be held at a number of locations in Europe over the coming weeks in recognition of the work of golf tour operators in different parts of the continent in bringing golfers to La Cala, thus benefiting not only the resort but the whole tourism industry in the Costa del Sol. The new awards scheme is part of the resort’s emphasis on its extensive links throughout Europe and coincided with Spain’s presidency of the European Union for the first six months of 2010. “We are a truly cosmopolitan resort with people from 17 different countries resident in the complex. Every year we are developing more and more ties with different countries and we wanted to reflect this with the awards scheme,” says the resorts Leisure Director, José Navas.

Denis Foley, La Cala Resort Managing Director, is pictured presenting award to Edouard des Fontaines in presence of Lynn Mitchell.

Golfbreaks.com is Europe’s largest golf travel company. In accepting the award of Overall Best Tour Operator, manager Edouard Des Fontaines pointed out that La Cala Resort was one of the first destinations it dealt with in Spain. “When we started to expand our operations to Spain in 2005 we identified La Cala Resort as one of the top four destinations and it is now our biggest customer on the Costa del Sol and is tied for first place in all of Spain. Our business with the resort has grown every year since and we have a great relationship with the complex. They are very customer orientated with a great reservations department and this is shown by a 48% repeat business, which is very high. In the beginning it was our goal to be the top operator working with the resort and we’re delighted to have achieved that in four years.” In spite of the global economic situation, Des Fontaines says the situation is already improving. “The U.K. market is picking up a little. The 20% average reduction in green fees last year has helped and this year is already looking much better with a 30% increase in numbers. I believe the next two to three years will also be better.”

The International Marketing Director of the Costa del Sol’s Tourism Board, Lynn Mitchell, said the awards were a very good initiative from La Cala Resort to show their business suppliers how much they were appreciated. Describing Golfbreaks.com as a worthy winner, she said the relationship between the company and the resort was “a match made in heaven.” She continued: “We in the tourism board take golf very, very seriously. La Cala is one of our most prestigious golf resorts and Golfbreaks.com is one of the largest golf tour operators in Europe. It is very different booking your golf holiday through a company such as Golfbreaks.com and booking it, for example, in a local bar. In every aspect of business it is important to have professionalism and the best possible quality/price ratio. In today’s online environment there are many types of service providers who do not offer that level of professionalism and quality. Every effort should be made to support industry professionals to ensure that the Costa del Sol is identified with a guarantee of quality.”

Lynn Mitchell went on to emphasise the importance of the golf sector to tourism on the Costa del Sol. “The golf tourist is in the middle to middle-high, socio-economic bracket. Golf tourism contributes over €940 million per annum to the region. Almost 40% of golfing visitors stay in 4 and 5 star hotels with an equal number having their own properties, often near golf courses. The average stay is almost 14 days and is normally during non-peak months. Additionally, these golfers often return for non-golfing breaks and visit other attractions in the area. So golf is a very important part of tourism in the area and I absolutely welcome La Cala’s initiative in recognising and solidifying its strong links with important tour operators in the sector.”

Published: 28/07/10