On the Garden Route, set in lush countryside with the backdrop of the Outeniqua Mountain Range, you’ll find Fancourt South Africa. Just seven kilometres from the town of George, this 613 hectare site is one of Africa’s favourite tourism businesses.
South Africa’s Garden Route, a stretch of glorious countryside between Mossel Bay in the west and Plettenberg Bay in the east, is high on the list of must-see attractions for most visitors to the Rainbow Nation. Many local tourists also appreciate this part of the Western Cape, where you can enjoy a mix of modern golf courses, ancient forests, secluded artists’ communities, retirement estates, modern malls, craft centres, mountain hideaways and beach holidays.
In this part of the country, there’s many attractive lures but one of the jewels in the Garden Route’s crown is Fancourt South Africa, the region’s leading leisure and lifestyle destination.
Opulent, grand, luxurious, beautiful, picturesque are all words that have been used to describe this location and, surrounded by the Outeniqua Mountain Range with a luxury-spa, four restaurants, three world-class golf courses and a five-star hotel and manor house, you can certainly understand why the business is held in such high regard.
Golf is a major draw for Fancourt and its courses – Links, Montagu and Outeniqua – are famous not just in SA but around the world. Gary Player even went as far as saying that the Links course at Fancourt was his greatest design feat.
Player and his design team spent months studying classic links courses of Scotland and Ireland and then, taking the best those courses had to offer, constructed the Links on what was once an airfield with over 700,000 m3of earth being moved to create it. Many people refer to the second hole as the most eye-catching. Over 200-metres long, the par-three hole is surrounded by a dramatic, rolling landscape, with a bunker precisely where one might find some relief just off the green, this is a challenge even for experienced players.
For local and international golf travellers, South Africa is a dream destination. With a perfect climate and established accommodation solutions, you couldn’t ask for much more.
For Fancourt, golf is hugely important and after the estate was transformed into a hotel and golfing destination in 1989, under the direction of Andrea and Helene Pieterse, and developed under the current owners Hasso and Sabine Plattner, management has constantly focused on growing its golf business along with its hotel occupancy rates.
“We set ourselves targets in terms of occupancy and we set ourselves targets in terms of rounds of golf – we’re targeting 60,000 rounds of golf in five years’ time. Were currently at about 45,000 rounds of golf a year and we want to develop that,” explains Head of Sales, Peter Dros.
“The golf courses really set us apart. Links is ranked number one in South Africa and all three of our courses are ranked in the top 20 so it’s a golfing Mecca. The manor house is the only boutique five-star hotel along the garden route. We have four restaurants at the hotel that cater for different needs. We are very technical when it comes to service delivery and that sets us apart. Our location is great, we’re very close to George airport which makes it easy to get in and out,” he says.
ECONOMIC SLUMP
The SA economy is currently experiencing something of a rut after recovering well from the 2009 global financial crisis. In October, former Finance Minister, Nhlanhla Nene revised the country’s growth forecasts down from 2% to 1.5%.
However, tourism is regarded by the government as an economic driver that can create jobs and contribute significantly to GDP and in March, Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom announced R600m of investments to help grow SA tourism.
Of course, each business has to develop its own strategy to deal with a slower economy and at Fancourt, the focus has been on investing in existing infrastructure.
“We continue to grow as a business. Tourism can be a volatile sector at times and if you look back over 20 years we’ve had 9/11, Ebola and many other ups and downs but that is part of the business and to make sure you can get through the difficult times you need to make sure you build a sustainable business. Certainly, some years have been tougher than others but the business continues to grow, the brand is strong, there is still demand for the product, demand for golf and demand for the Garden Route and that is always a good thing. But we do have our challenges and that goes for any business,” Dros explains.
“The economy is key. As soon as the economy goes down, tourism is normally the first thing to suffer and the first place that people cut their expenditure and that’s not unique to Fancourt, that a global trend.
“We continue to expand the real estate component of the business but right now we are not looking at new properties or new golf courses. You’re always investing on your existing infrastructure and you always have to maintain your standards and continually renovate and keep up with the trends so that in itself is a big investment. We will always be investing in our portfolio to ensure we meet international standards as a minimum,” he says.
The real estate arm of the business is a major contributing component. The company sells luxury residential property, which comes with family memberships to all of the hospitality amenities, in a variety of lifestyle options. There are six different types of residential address: Colonial Lodges, Cape Dutch Homes, Oakland Residences, Links Avenue Properties, Links Ridge Properties and Montagu Ridge Properties. “There’s goals to sell certain percentages of real estate and we are on course to reach those goals right now,” says Dros.
A VARIED OFFERING
While Fancourt is probably most well-known for its golf and hotel offerings, it’s important to remember that these are elements of the business that inevitably have lulls throughout the season. To combat this and stimulate activity during slower periods, the business offers a first-class business conferencing and events service – something the modern hotel can rarely afford to go without.
“That is an important part of our business particularly in the low season,” says Dros. “Our summer is great but in winter we need to find a different source of revenue and conferencing is an important part of that.”
Business guests can take advantage of modern audio-visual and computer equipment, a 400-seater ballroom, a boardroom and a number of breakaway rooms. Then there’s the fully equipped spa, gym, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, running and walking trails and team-building activities such as golf clinics, night golf, 4-hole challenge and potjie competitions.
When business is done, the Fancourt Hotel offers 117 rooms and the manor house has 19 superb suites.
Even though the company has an extremely strong brand and a reputation for warm and personal service, there’s no resting on laurels and the sales and marketing department work tirelessly to drive the business forward.
“The company was bought in 1994 so we’re just celebrating our 21styear in business,” explains Dros. “We have around 450 members of staff so it’s quite a big operation. That includes the two hotels, the golf courses, food and beverage; there’s a lot that goes into it.
“We have a few different marketing channels. We have our international channel for international clientele travelling to Fancourt. We market there through traditional means; through the travel trade. We have international tour operators that will book through us. Obviously we have some business coming to us directly so it’s important that our brand is strong. We have a very important local market which requires a completely different strategy. We also have the big corporate component coming to our business and again those are either corporates coming directly to us or through PCOs (Professional Conference Organisers). We have a few different channels that we are active in and through which we drive different market segments.”
Fancourt is also taking advantage of so-called ‘new media marketing’, utilising online tools to drive interest in the brand. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn are all used by the company to great effect and Dros says creativity in this space is important.
“It’s a dynamic industry and it’s changing all the time. If you look at the online space and what’s happening there, that’s a whole different ball game, social media is a whole different ball game so it’s not just about staying in traditional channels; you’ve got to be innovative and creative all the time,” he says.
In future editions of Enterprise Africa, we will be exploring the Fancourt business further to understand more about the operational side of running such an impressive empire, and also looking at the Garden Route and its offering to the country’s imperative travel and tourism industry.