How To Evaluate A Scottsdale Golf Package

It's important that after plunking down a credit card, the customer is left with the feeling they made the right choice and got a fair price for their vacation package to Scottsdale. Due to the advances in technology some courses and hotels are advocating the hands-off approach to stay and play packages by providing point and click solutions. They claim this makes it easier for the customer when they really mean it's easier for them. If it was up to management they would eliminate the personal touch altogether because their staffs are cut to the bone and they really can't spare the time to chat.

CRS Is Not The Critics Choice

That's a sad state of affairs in itself but the worst result of this attitude is the birth of the dreaded - Central Reservations Service. Hotel staffs are just too busy with their "bread and butter" local corporate customers, keeping the parent company happy with a billion reports, gossiping about their co-workers and worrying about making "budget". They will "outsource" what they consider the least important of their calls, the leisure customer. The goal of a reservation center is to get you to pay the highest price possible! They certainly won't take the time to talk to you about golf because they wouldn't know a golf club from a men's club. The hotels swoon over projected "conversion ratios" promised by these call centers and lick their chops at the money they save by reducing staff. They could do so much more if the phone would stop ringing! Huh!

The Illusion

The customer is then lead to believe that they are talking to the hotel directly when in fact they may be talking to someone in another country! These people not only don't know anything but the most basic information about the destination you have contacted them about, they can't tell you about drive times to the courses or make suggestions for restaurants, clubs, golf instruction, etc. They most likely have never even been to the property that they are supposed to be selling. How can they do that? Well, it's all a numbers game. Most people will just pay the piper to get it over and done with.

A Toothless Reservation

Centrall Reservations are powerless to cut any deals or offer any discounts except the standard ones offered by most hotels, AAA, AARP, etc. You are lucky if you can understand some of them. If you ask them if they are on property they may tell you that due to security reasons they are not allowed to tell you! "Oh, you plan on coming out on May 28th for three nights and would like the summer rate that kicks in on June 1? Sorry! can't help you"! Only by calling the hotel itself and speaking with someone in Sales will you stand a chance of scoring a deal like that and, chances are if the hotel is not that busy, you will.

Golfers Know Better

That impersonal approach does not go over well with most of the golfers I know because over 90% of "golf packages" end up being customized and require a hands-on approach. As a traveling golfer myself I would never just point and click my way to a golf vacation. I will do my research on the Internet about a destination like Scottsdale but I would seek out local knowledge before I put down my credit card. I have done it for fishing in Alaska and I have done it playing golf in Myrtle Beach. The ones that live there and know their destination are the ones I want to talk to.