A typical overseas golf trip requires the planning and execution of a minimum of 40 to 50 individual plans and reservations, from where to stay and how to get around to what to eat and how to enjoy your time off the course. One of the primary reasons to utilize a golf travel company is to take the guesswork out of, well, just about everything.
Of course, you’re also taking a small leap of faith by entrusting the company you select to not only deliver on those plans, but to recommend hotels, restaurants, and touring options that will fit the desires and exceed expectations of you and your travel companions.
The fact is, however, not every company approaches the planning process with this mindset.
And yet, it’s one of the most important things to consider when debating the best golf travel companies for your trip.
So how does Haversham & Baker select the hotels, restaurants, and sightseeing activities we recommend to our travelers?
We’re glad you’ve asked.
Boots on the Ground
When Sam Baker founded our company back in 1991, the widespread use of the internet was years away. The founders of TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Google Reviews were still a decade or more from their world-changing ideas. There were a few travel guidebooks for the British Isles, but the “pay for placement” model that most embraced made them terribly biased and often unreliable.
As a result, the most effective way to identify where the H&B Forces should sleep, eat, and explore in those days, was to first experience them for ourselves.
In the decades since, the internet has changed our business, but not our approach in this regard. To this day, every hotel, every restaurant, and every sightseeing experience is personally vetted by either the H&B Concierge or a senior member of our team.
Sure, we could take the easy way out and simply recommend a new hotel or restaurant based on its online reviews. But to do so would turn away from the level of expertise that our members have come to expect.
Because it’s one thing to know where the good hotels are in town, it’s quite another to know the specific rooms you should try and book at each. Not to mention how easy it is to manipulate online reviews, as evidenced by the sometimes suspicious rankings of hotels and restaurants on TripAdvisor.
H&B travelers trust our recommendations because they know it’s coming from our first-hand experience, as opposed to the word of user JaneD407 somewhere online.
Field Reports from the Forces
In addition to the reconnaissance by our team, we receive hundreds of post-trip Field Reports from our travelers each year. These often contain useful bits of intel for us to follow-up on further which, in turn, may result in changes to our recommendations.
For example, after receiving reports of falling service standards at a notable property in Scotland, we took a closer look. The property subsequently went from hosting hundreds of room nights a year for our Scotland golf packages to essentially none.
When a group happened upon a brand new restaurant in Southwest Ireland and reported an outstanding experience, we deployed our Concierge to pay a visit. It has been a mainstay of our recommended dining options ever since.
The fact is, our members are a savvy and well-traveled group. So when they report on both our long-standing partners or new establishments discovered along their journey, we listen.
Relationships Matter
Besides vetting our recommendations first-hand, we also get to know the people involved. After all, it’s the various chefs, concierges, maitre d’s, tour guides, bartenders, and hotel and restaurant managers who hold the keys to the quality of your experience.
By investing the time to forge relationships with these partners, they gain a clear understanding of the desires and expectations of a Haversham & Baker traveler. Most importantly, they can then deliver on those expectations as well.
In addition, the strength of our relationships on the ground also comes in handy on the off chance that something goes awry during an H&B Expedition.
Because there’s nothing as effective at getting your trip back in the fairway as a quick text message or phone call to the right person.
Things Change
When a well-known hotel in Scotland changed ownership, members of our team warned that the new management style would have a negative impact on the quality of service. They were right.
When the chef departed a renowned restaurant in Ireland, our Concierge was promptly dispatched to see if the quality of cuisine had left with him. It had.
When an underperforming hotel with tons of potential hired a new General Manager, we believed it might now meet the standards of an H&B traveler. The transformation was extraordinary.
All of this is to say that, in the world of golf travel, things rarely stay the same for very long.
Which is why it’s imperative for golf travel companies to not only have their finger on the pulse of the recommendations they’re booking, but also a willingness to evolve as they do. Because one poor experience, especially one that stems from a recommendation that’s clearly past its prime, is one too many.
If you’ll forgive a moment of immodesty, the time and resources required to deploy our staff across the British Isles, so that they might forge relationships with new and existing hotel, restaurant, and touring partners, costs us a small fortune each year.
That investment, however, is part of what distinguishes Haversham & Baker from every other golf travel company.
It would be easy, and certainly less costly, to simply look up reviews online or blindly send our travelers to the same places as everyone else. But that’s not why our members have continued to turn to H&B long after Steve Jobs put the world of golf travel right in their pocket.
They understand that their own investment in the expertise of Haversham & Baker returns itself many times over in the form of time saved and stress relieved during the planning phase, as well as a better all-around experience during the trip itself.
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