It’s Not What You Think!
Club & Resort Business Magazine published an article in July 2024 titled "Clubs Shift to Attract Members." It was subtitled, “The post-pandemic influx of golfers and new members, with an interest in family-friendly amenities, has driven an increase in membership and capital expenditures, but clubs must balance this trend with keeping longtime members.”
Clubs are constantly seeking new, younger, affluent members. This is creating a generational divide.
Younger members and prospective members live in a digital-first world. They expect information instantly. Static boards and printed updates on cork bulletin boards in the locker room do not align with how they engage. Heritage Interactive Touchscreens do.
Heritage has created the information portal clubs need to attract new members while showing current members that the club embraces technology. Heritage Interactive Touchscreens don’t replace tradition—they elevate it.
Last May, the Club Managers Association of America published an article submitted by GGA Partners titled: "What’s Hot—What Do Members Want? The Top Seven Priorities." The first four are as follows:
1. Dining experiences
2. Golf courses and practice facilities
3. Clubhouse and facilities—renovate and upgrade locker rooms, lounges, common areas, and indoor amenities
4. Member experience—increase communication with members and offer more events and activities
Many clubs are taking a step forward by first taking a step back—reviewing archives and gathering artifacts from days gone by. Many clubs are adding a club historian to their staff. A club’s brand and identity are always evolving. One of the most valuable assets a club has is its legacy—a legacy built by visionaries and shared by generations of members.
At Heritage Creations, branding, storytelling, history, and culture are not simply words in a tagline; they represent what we do and who we are. We create more social and connected clubhouses through extraordinary refreshes and Experiential Environmental Design.
We Offer:
Heritage Interactive Touchscreens—Digital Displays
Easily updatable, interactive displays put information about key events, staff, members, photos, club traditions, historical references, course and hole flyovers, event calendars, and other club information in one convenient, intelligent space.
Interior Design Integration
No matter how classic or contemporary a club is, our design and production teams work with you and your staff to create a display presentation that complements your existing interior design and your club’s branding. Your walls become part of the experience, not just decoration.
One-of-a-Kind Customization
At Heritage, we create a contemporary, branded display experience by combining Champions Panels, awards, trophies, club relics, photos, and perpetual displays, uniting your club’s traditions in a breathtaking showcase.
Members have a distinct sense of pride—one that extends beyond the club logo on their polo or cap. It’s pride that unites and defines your club and its membership.
Heritage Experiential Environments are designed to recognize and honor your club’s legacy and culture. Looking back at your club’s past will strengthen your club’s future.
Engaged members who share this sense of belonging and family will inspire fellow members and prospective members. Because member retention is critically important to the success of any club, clubs that recognize the need to create meaningful displays and experiences may experience higher member retention rates. Prior to the pandemic, member loss rates were approximately 8–10% per year. Since the influx of new members and shorter waitlists, those rates have declined.
Golf and country clubs are becoming “third places.” Home is the first place. Work is the second place, and a third place serves as a location for social connection and informality, where community is built. Through the installation of Experiential Environments, clubs are building these communities inside the walls of their clubhouses.
Successful clubs partner with Heritage to create these Experiential Environments—environments of purpose and presence.
I recently read an article published in BoardRoom magazine by Lawrence Avery, director of club development at Stone Group Architects, titled "The Evolution from R.O.E. to R.O.M.E.—and Why It Matters More Than Ever." Within the article Avery writes:
"Sometime in the early 1990s, I started telling my team something I have never stopped saying. 'We are not in the club business. We are in the business of making our members feel good, and we use the club as a tool'. That one idea changed how I led, how I hired, how I planned, and honestly, how I measured whether we were doing our jobs.
It took another twenty years before I put a name to it.
In 2014, I introduced the concept of ROE (Return on Experience) to the private club industry. The idea came from a simple observation. Club boards talk constantly about ROI (Return on Investment). And they should. Capital is finite and stewardship matters. But I kept asking a different question. What is the return on the experience you are creating for your members? The better the experience, the stronger the retention. The stronger the retention, the stronger the recruitment. Get both right, and your club's financial health follows. ROE was never meant to replace ROI. It was meant to remind us what ROI is actually in service of.
ROE resonated. GMs and boards who were ready to think differently about capital decisions and program investment understood it immediately. But over time, I kept running into the same issue. ROE works for any business. A hotel. A restaurant. A fitness brand. The framework was right, but it was not specific enough. It did not name the person at the center of everything we do in this industry.
That is where ROME comes from.
ROME—Return on Member Experience. One word added. One word that changes everything. In a private club, the members are not customers. The member is the reason the club exists. When you put “member” at the center of the framework, the questions get more specific and more honest. Whose experience are we talking about? For whom are we making this decision? For whom are we spending this money? Those are the questions that should be in the room every time."
Heritage Creations -- Your History. Your Legacy. Your Milestones.
Presented in a way that resonates with this generation, the next generation, and generations to come.