PGA National

Established in 1981, PGA National consists of an upper-upscale hotel with 339 guestrooms, 5 private golf courses with resort guest access, site of the 1983 Ryder Cup, 39,000 sq. feet of meeting space, a 40,000 square foot spa, a 33,000 square foot sports recreation facility, 19 tennis courts and private clubhouse facility.

However, it had remained untouched for more than twenty years, and marketing was virtually non-existent. The property had become irrelevant and the ADR which should have been in the range of $200 was shy of $100. The directive was obvious.

Daniels + Roberts was engaged shortly after the asset acquisition and just prior to an initial $68 MM capital investment. Initially, and in order to reacquire the notoriety of the property, conversations were opened to move the Honda Classic from Mirasol to PGA National.

D+R began with a guest history study, consisting of RFM analysis and geo-demo cluster segmentation utilizing PSYTE. While ownership and management maintained pre-conceived perceptions regarding their customer profile as middle-income, the PSYTE cluster segmentation revealed that the guest socio-economics were substantially higher than perceived. The highest income segment which was primarily constituted of entrepreneurs in the US indexed 5 times more likely to pursue this destination while middle income clusters indexed far below average.

Utilizing data from our behavioral and attitudinal sources we appended the customer database to further enhance the prospect guest profile.

Image | PGA National Guest Lifestyle Distribution Chart

The anecdotal perceptions from ownership also indicated local Florida and NE corridors were the feeder markets. This was consistent with omnibus studies and Florida market data. However, our analysis revealed more educated, younger, geographically diverse affluent guest than originally thought.

For group marketing, we identified key attributes and performed a discreet choice analysis directed at decision makers this study assisted us gaining a thorough knowledge of certain obstacles and pain points within the meeting planner segment.

Creative executions were tested for leisure and group segments.

For group:
we sought to enhance their self-worth and perceived importance with their existing corporate structure.

For leisure:
we adopted a playful, whimsical yet honest approach.

Image | PGA National Campaign Landing Page

RESULTS:

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PGA National Resort and Spa profitably maintained operations throughout the entire renovation process, increased annualized ADR in excess of 107% and increased group and incentive sales resulting in increase of annualized occupancy by 23%.