Golf Package Price Comparison: When Your Client Finds It Cheaper Online

On 30 September a UK operator asked me for straight net rates at Casa de Campo®. Ten nights in February 2027, two adults, all-inclusive, no golf package. A clean golf package price comparison was the whole point: the package felt heavy for a leisure couple, and the plain stay had to be cheaper.

It was a perfectly sensible request. He already had our packages. He wanted the unbundled version, because unbundled is supposed to cost less.

When the two sat side by side, the plain stay did not come out cheaper. The golf and the airport transfers were already sitting inside the package rate. Taking them out removed product, not cost.

I tell that story because the same thing happens, in reverse, on the client side of your business every week of the winter selling season.

The screenshot that arrives on a Sunday night

Your client has your proposal. Seven nights, five rounds, confirmed tee times, transfers, a specific room category. It went out on Thursday.

On Sunday a screenshot comes back. A booking site, a hotel in the Dominican Republic, seven nights, a bold number well below yours. Sometimes with a question underneath. Often with nothing at all.

He is not accusing you of anything. He is asking whether he is about to make a mistake.

From that moment, the conversation is no longer about a golf trip. It is about two numbers. And when it is just two numbers, the smaller one wins, because a screenshot gives your client one line of information and your proposal gives him four pages he has already filed.

What a golf package price comparison usually compares

After many winters quoting Casa de Campo® to operators in the UK, Germany, Scandinavia and North America, I can count on one hand the screenshots that compared like with like.

Almost always, the comparison is between a golf trip and a hotel room in the same country.

That is not a criticism of the site that published it. A booking engine sells beds, efficiently, at a good price. Building a golf week is not its business and it does not pretend otherwise. The trouble is that the screenshot does not say any of this. It says «Dominican Republic», it says «all inclusive», it says seven nights, and every word is true.

Between what is true on the screen and the trip your client has in his head, there are seven open questions.

Seven questions to put to a cheaper screenshot

This is the sheet I fill in when an operator forwards me a lower price. Two columns, the screenshot on the left and our proposal on the right, one line per question.

1. Which dates, how many nights? A fair share of screenshots were run on a different week, or on a one-night rate that does not repeat. Over Christmas and Easter, minimum stays tend to appear at the last step of the booking, not on the first screen.

2. Which hotel, on which coast? The Dominican Republic has several coasts and a fair amount of road between them. The hotel in the screenshot can be an hour or more from the course your client actually wants.

3. What does all-inclusive mean here? A buffet plus two themed restaurants that need booking is all-inclusive. So is a different à la carte restaurant every night. On a screen, they read the same.

4. How many rounds, on which course, booked by whom? This is the line that moves the most money. If there is no golf in the screenshot, the golf has to be added. And some golf cannot be added at all. Golf at Casa de Campo® is reserved for resort guests, so a client staying next door does not get onto Teeth of the Dog, however politely he asks.

5. Confirmed tee times, or «subject to availability»? A package with tee times confirmed in writing and a room rate with «golf available» are different products, even if both mention golf. This is what can honestly be promised, and when.

6. Which airport, which transfers? La Romana airport is five minutes from the resort. Punta Cana is around 45 minutes, Santo Domingo about an hour. If the screenshot assumes a flight into a different airport, the transfer is not in the price, but it is in the first afternoon of the trip. More on La Romana routings here.

7. What happens when something changes? A name change, a date shift, a player who drops out two weeks before. And who picks up the phone in destination. The screenshot has terms and conditions. They are rarely in the image.

Answer the seven and the price gap usually stops being a price gap. It becomes a product gap, and a product gap is a much easier conversation for a sales team to have.

Sometimes the screenshot is the right answer

For some clients, the cheaper number is the correct one.

The couple who want a beach week and one round «if the weather is nice». The family where golf is one morning. The repeat guest who knows exactly what he is buying. For them, a five-round package with confirmed tee times is more trip than they asked for.

When that is the case, I say so. Some of the operators who now send me their best groups started trusting me the day I told them their client was well served by the other option.

The seven questions are not there to win every comparison. They are there to show when there is a comparison and when there is not.

The order of the reply

The questions matter. The order in which the reply goes back matters more.

Agree first. «You are right, it is cheaper.» No «but» after it. The client did his homework, found something and showed it to you before booking it. That already says a good deal about the relationship.

Then ask. «Could you send me the full page or the link? I would like to see what is included so we compare the same thing.» This is not a technique. You genuinely do not know what is in it, and neither does he.

Then one small step. «You will have both columns, line by line, by tomorrow at noon.» A day and a time, not «I will get back to you».

Reverse the order and it stops working. Open with «it is not the same product» and the client starts defending his screenshot. Once he is defending it, he is no longer reading it.

Why the margin stays where it is

Matching the screenshot by trimming margin looks like the quick way out. The catch is that you are matching a figure that was never measuring the same thing as yours.

If the two columns close the gap to something reasonable, there is nothing to trim. The client is now paying for things he can see. If the gap is still wide, the proposal may simply carry more trip than this client wants, and the fix is in the product. One night fewer. A different room category. Four rounds instead of five.

Adjusting the product keeps the price honest. Trimming the margin keeps the trip just as expensive to deliver and only looks cheaper. Here is what a golf group costs in hours, before anyone touches the margin.

The two-column sheet

This is the version I send. It fits in an email and needs no design.

Dates and nights. Screenshot versus proposal. If they differ, that goes first.

Hotel and distance to the first tee. In minutes, not kilometres.

Board. Which meals, where, with or without reservations.

Golf. Number of rounds, courses by name, tee times confirmed or pending.

Getting around. Golf cart included or not, and how the client gets from room to tee.

Airport and transfers. Which airport, how long, included or not.

Changes and contact. Cancellation terms and a name that answers.

Seven lines, and a final one with the real difference once the missing items are added to the left-hand column.

No adjectives required. The sheet does the talking, and the client draws his own conclusion.

For a reservations team, not just one consultant

One screenshot is a conversation. Forty in the first two weeks of January, the peak of UK and Nordic golf booking, are a workload.

That is where the sheet earns its keep. Built once per destination, with lines four, five and six already filled in for your own product, a consultant only has to complete the left-hand column. The answer goes back in the same afternoon, by someone who may never have set foot on the island, and it reads the same whoever sends it.

It also tells product something useful. If the same line keeps closing the gap, transfers or tee times or the airport, that line belongs on the first page of the proposal, before the client ever goes looking.

What is left after Sunday

The interesting part is what happens to the relationship.

The client who sent the screenshot was not looking for another operator. He wanted someone to tell him whether he was about to get it wrong. Answer him with agreement, two questions and a sheet the next day, and he learns something he did not know: that you read the small print for him.

Next time, he does not send a screenshot. He sends dates.

If there is a screenshot on your desk right now

Email me at info@globalhemisphere.com with the screenshot your client sent and his travel dates. I will send back both columns filled in, what sits inside our Casa de Campo® proposal and what is missing from the other one, ready to forward as it is.

Rates are quoted for specific dates, a specific group and confirmed tee times. Send me those three and you will have it the same day.