Setting up office in the family dinning room, Scott designed and printed brochures on a home PC which he took weekly to the numerous hotels in Cape Town and dropped off for their clients. Educating the concierges that it was better to golf through Ascot than direct to the golf courses with bookings was the easy part as Ascot paid commissions which they did not receive from the hotels. Getting them to convince the client that a R250 booking fee was justified was not so easy. After 18 months of transferring golfers Scott and Barry realized that there was no real money in the venture and the way forward was to capture the golfers prior to his arrival in the South Africa and offer full packages including accommodation, car hire, sight-seeing and golf.

Ascot becomes a sports travel partner

In 1999 Ascot Golf Tours produced its first 16 page brochure which was once again designed by Scott and printed at the local print shop. Scott also attended the WTM and ITB trade shows and the first partnerships with international operators were set up.

In 2000 Ascot moved premises and took over two rooms in Scott’s house. At the same time a link was forged with the Club Travel group and Ascot Golf became the official Sports Travel partner for Club Travel. This partnership continues today. Club Travel also gave Ascot the ability to issue airline tickets and Angela Edkins (Scott’s sister) joined the company to handle the travel side.

The rise of Ascot Golf specialists

In 2001 the International Golf Travel Market came to Sun City in South Africa and Ascot Golf had a huge presence at the show. The coverage Ascot received was enormous for such a small business and numerous new business partnership contracts were signed with leading golf tour operators from around the world. Ascot Golf at this stage took a huge step forward and three new staff members were added to the team to assist with the increase in bookings.

Over the next three years Ascot has increased its staff compliment to 9 full time staff and 4 part time as well as an accounting team. A fantastic team of dedicated consultants ensures that itineraries are packed with just enough golf and sight-seeing to ensure that our clients not only have a great first time visit but come back to us time and time again.

Playing golf in South Africa becomes an experience

In the last 12 months Angie has taken over the operations of the business. This has allowed Scott to continue with the development and marketing of Ascot Golf Tours. This development has included producing a world class brochure unlike any our competitors offer and a website which offers visitors information on golf in South Africa and unbeatable offers.

In 2002 Ascot Tours helped set up and establish two related tourism companies. Ascot now own 50% in a cultural based, general touring company called Vuya Africa (www.vuyaafrica.co.za) and 34% in a wheels company called Drive South Africa (www.drivesouthafrica.co.za). The establishment of these two highly successful ventures has strengthened Ascot Golf buying power and firmly established it as a tourism company in the highly competitive South African market.

Golf tourism and Ascot Golf Tours

As a full member of the International Association of Golf Tour Operators, Ascot Golf Tours is now firmly established as one of the leading inbound tour operators into South Africa. In 2003 the Western Cape Golf Clubs identified Ascot Golf as the tour operator which supplied the most international visitor rounds to their golf clubs for the last year. Scott has been involved for the past 18 months in working closely with the golf clubs to assist them in increasing their tourism earning potential and this has been highlighted by a him being invited to their annual conference to do a presentation on Golf Tourism.

To end off it must be noted that the initial dream of Barry and Scott to play golf each day while Ascot Golf brings home the bread has not materialized. As the business has grown so more time in each day is needed and the first thing to suffer as the day gets shorter is time on the golf course. “Oh well, when you’re having fun in the office why get frustrated on the golf course” says Scott.

All of the Ascot Golf team looks forward to welcoming you to South Africa. We guarantee that you will have a golfing holiday like no other and that once you have been once you will return again.

Yours sincerely

The Ascot Golf Team.