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Lure of The Links

By Donna Carter

Renowned for great golf, P.E.I. is in buyer's market mode with plenty of opportunities for planners to score sweet deals.

It's late afternoon and 40 meeting attendees are assembled for evening cocktails on a stretch of sandy beach on Prince Edward Island's scenic north coast. Atlantic waves lap the shoreline tossing up clouds of salty spray. Under a large white marquee, the group's mood is festive while they enjoy fresh P.E.I. mussels and chilled martinis as a prelude to a lobster dinner at the nearby five-star Rodd Crowbush Golf & Beach Resort. Just when it seems the picture couldn't get any better, a dozen tartan-clad bagpipers emerge piping Amazing Grace. In the midst of this magic moment, a flock of Canadian geese flies directly overhead, as if on cue. "The scene was incredibly moving. There were tears in peoples eyes." Says Jo-Ann Thomsen, program manager for Meeting Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, a division of P.E.I. Tourism that serves as a one-stop resource for meetings, events and conventions planning. One of he attendees told Thomsen the only way they could have improved on this event was to have had the geese fly over in the formation of the company's logo.

Thomsen says this particular event is just a small sample of what the island has to offer groups. But while P.E.I. has a reputation for sunny sand-fringed shores, mouth-watering seafood, Scottish bagpipers and friendly down home hospitality, in many cases these elements may not be the motivating reasons groups gravitate to Canada's smallest province. Many groups come back again and again for the golf.

Game For Golf

Janet Higgins, national sales manager for Charlottetown-based Rodd Hotels & Resorts, Atlantic Canada's largest chain of independent family-owned hotels, says that during the spring, summer and fall, golf is typically the No. 1 attraction for corporate groups. Local DMC, Marsha Metcalfe, director of marketing and development for Charlottetown-based Destination P.E.I., agrees. "Eighty per cent of our clients want a golf component included in their programs, and the island is famously equipped to meet the demand," she says.

Halifax-based Heather Wile, clinical marketing manager for Toronto-based Novartis Nutrition, Canadian division of the international pharmaceutical brand, organized a five-day trip to P.E.I. last year for 30 members of the country's national sales team. As a meeting destination, she has nothing but praise for the island in general, but particularly applauds the golf scene. With a host of superior courses that are easy to get to, she wonders how any group could go to P.E.I. and not play golf. "Every year our company holds a sales meeting somewhere in Canada and attendee response to last September's assembly on P.E.I. ranked it tops over other destinations across the country." Metcalfe adds an additional testament to the island's popularity by pointing out that the association statistics and planner feedback show delegate attendance is typically 10% higher when P.E.I. is chosen as the meeting venue. Wile says her groups' visit in 2003 was so well received that several of the attendees booked personal vacation there this year. "In Addition to superb golf, wonderful biking trails and terrific food, it's a place where delegates tend to let down their hair and have a great time," she says.

The Right Course

Often referred to as the Myrtle Beach of the North, the tiny 224-km island that's best suited to host small to medium-sized groups boosts a remarkable 31 golf courses, many of them championship tracks such as the Links at Crowbush Cove, standard bearer of the island's premier layouts. In addition, SCOREGolf magazine, Canada's most respected golf journal, voted P.E.I the No. 1 golf destination in the country the last two years running. SCOREGolf also named the Canadian Golf Academy at P.E.I.'s Brudenell River Resort the No.1 teaching facility in Canada.

From a logistics perspective, the good thing about P.E.I.'s compact size is that most courses are within 30 minutes of each other and no track is farther than an hour from the island capital of Charlottetown. Moreover, considering the airport is less than 15 minutes from the 211-room Delta Prince Edward, Charlottetown's largest hotel, and the hotel is just five minutes from the 18-hole Fox Meadow golf course, a group can feasibly be on the links in little more than 30 minutes from touchdown.

In addition to convenience, Greg Dukart, general manager of Golf Links Prince Edward Island, a provincial Crown Corporation responsible for the operation and promotion of four of P.E.I.'s top golf courses, says recent global conditions have resulted in a buyers market for inbound groups. Citing economic fallout from SARS, terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq as factors leading to a downturn in both group and leisure travel, Dukart says the window of opportunity for planners to negotiate attractive deals is wide open. "There has never been a better time for meeting procurement on P.E.I. than now," he says.

Catherine Rankin, director of Sales for Rodd Hotels & Resorts in Charlottetown agrees. But she points out that the Rodd chain still offers the best deals during the spring/fall shoulder seasons. Rankin says her company isn't necessarily slashing rates; rather it is sweetening the pricing pot with attractive value- added options like room upgrades and spa packages as rewards for early registration.

Rodd operates seven P.E.I. properties and three of them are upscale resort facilities attached to premier island golf courses: the Links at Crowbush Cove, Mill River, Brudenell River and Dundarave. The resort properties are especially popular with golf groups and feature substantial meeting space, elegant dining rooms, spas and accommodations that are a mix of traditional hotel rooms, deluxe chalet cottages and cabins.

Irene Richard, corporate secretary for Moncton, N.B.-based Atlantic Blue Cross, organized an association board meeting in Charlottetown in September 2001, and although the meeting was to be exclusively business-oriented, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks extended their stay and provided them with time on P.E.I.'s links. With air traffic grounded, board members were a captive audience on an island renowned for its golf courses. They played golf for three days and Richard says that, not surprisingly, nobody complained about the extended stay.

Beyond The Fairways

Great golf may be the key element that lures a high percentage of meeting groups to P.E.I., but the island is far from being one-dimensional in terms of its menu of activities and attractions. The 250 delegates associated with the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) that gathered for a four-day conference in Charlottetown in 2003 is among the small percentage of inbound groups that were not itching to hit the links.

Ottawa-based Mary Kane, conference planner for the national body dedicated to promoting education worldwide, says that despite CBIE delegates' lack of interest in golf, they ranked the island their best-ever conference destination, praising the service, great Irish pubs, lobster dinners, excellent event venues and superior hospitality. "Even the taxi drivers in Charlottetown made our group feel like visiting stars," she says.

Kane's CBIE program was kicked off with an opening reception and dinner at Founders' Hall, Canada's Birthplace Pavilion, which is a new 210,000sq.-ft. heritage attraction and conference facility alongside Charlottetown's historic waterfront. Food and cocktail stations are set up throughout rooms filled with permanent multi-media displays that chronicle the history of Canada from the Charlottetown Conference in 1864 to today.

Although Dukart's role is tightly linked to golf promotion, he's a self-confessed flag waver for the entire island. "We're not under the gun here to rush. Groups find it's like turning the clock back 50 years to the days when there was no hustle and bustle. The island is a place to relax and enjoy.

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