One of our municipal clients invested in building a world class recreational project. The 500-acre facility includes 4 Olympic size ice pads, 3 indoor turf playing fields, 2 NBA size gymnasiums, 6 meeting rooms, 3 multi-purpose program rooms, a banquet hall, 12 multi-purpose sports fields, 6 baseball diamonds, 4 beach volleyball courts, 15 kms of paved community trails, and a golf course.

The facility became the center of a financial scandal and its under-utilization along with its higher financing costs created a less than acceptable operating deficit as well as the need for a better approach to marketing. PMG was contracted to provide insights and recommendations that would increase utilization, reduce the operating deficit, and better market the facility.

The intent of this project was several fold:

• Understand the community’s awareness and appreciation of the facility
• Discover the community’s view of the facility as a community asset vis-à-vis its financial nonperformance
• Identify opportunities that drive increased usage and revenue
• Develop marketing recommendations that maximize utilization and optimize revenues
• Anticipate organizational gaps and make recommendations that ensure that the marketing recommendations can be achieved
• Explore the acceptability of selling the facility
• Help turn the page and move forward in optimizing this world-class facility

We utilized several tools and techniques in gathering the information required to make our recommendations. These qualitative and quantitative measures included:

Market Research

• Focus groups with residents, Focus groups with businesses, Community quantitative survey, Business quantitative survey, Golf course quantitative survey, Affiliation group survey, User satisfaction study, Special events market survey

Building the Knowledge Base

• Council interviews, Meetings with the facility’s Citizen Advisory Group, Staff interviews, Facility Tour, User group interviews, Competitive pricing profile, Competitive advertising profile, Organizational assessment, Secondary research/data mining

Our insights and recommendations included the development of new sales and marketing tools as well as new and improved communications with residents. We also delivered a new pricing strategy and recommended a new management organizational structure and best practices. We also recommended that the City not sell the facility but consider privatizing the operation of the golf course.

This facility is now the jewel in the city’s recreational facilities.