Birmingham and Mobile, Alabama
The Fairways Golf Company’s former owner, Don Faggard, and travel industry veteran, Alan Hale, CTC, announced today that Carbriwalk Holdings had acquired the tour company effective December 31, 2008. Fairways Golf Company (Fairways) is primarily a web-based tour operation, previously headquartered in Mobile, Alabama. At the same time, Mr. Hale introduced David Kunze, CTC, as Sr. Vice-President of Technology and Operations of the new company, which will be re-branded as Fairways Golf Vacations (www.fairwaysgolfvacations.com). The company will have operations and sales offices in Stevens Point, Wisconsin and Mobile, Alabama.
Fairways sells golf vacations to destinations throughout North America and has long-standing preferred relationships with the Natural State Golf Trail of Arkansas, the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama, and the Louisiana Audubon Golf Trail. Fairways’ executives announced plans to add more domestic product, introduce international golf destinations, and to significantly increase preferred travel agency relationships.
Fairways was founded in 1990 by Mr. Faggard in Mobile. Since that time, the company’s customer base has grown to over 300,000 golfers from across the USA. He will remain with the company in a consulting role to assist in the transition and as an advisor. Mr. Faggard commented, “I am very proud of our employees and our outstanding service reputation of nearly two decades. While I’m looking forward to semi-retirement, I am pleased to be working with the new executive team as we grow Fairways to a world-wide powerhouse in golf vacations.”
Mr. Hale is the former CEO of Adventure Travel (AdTrav Travel Management) and previously served on the board of directors of Ensemble Travel Group and the executive committee of The Travel Institute. He has served on several advisory boards including: Traveling Times, Dollar Rent-a-Car, and Choice Hotels International. Since the sale of his former company, Mr. Hale has provided consulting services to leading travel industry companies such as: Virgin Vacations USA, Piedmont Travel, Travel Acquisitions Group (formerly, Carlson Leisure Group), and Joselyn, Tepper and Associates (TAMS).
Mr. Kunze previously served as a Vice President at Travel Guard International, the Chief Marketing Officer of Atlas Travel, and President of BookingBuilder Technologies. Mr. Hale, President and CEO, said, “This acquisition represents a perfect fit for my background and interests. I’m an avid golfer and Don’s top notch company presented an opportunity to return to the travel industry in an entrepreneurial role. Fairways will begin to aggressively market to the travel agency channel which we believe will allow us to significantly grow sales. David and I have been outspoken travel agent advocates and are firm believers that travel agents bring value to wholesalers and travel consumers. We hope to persuade all of our agency friends to consider Fairways when booking golf vacations for their loyal customers. In addition, having David join our team to lead our technology and sales efforts, strengthens our company’s long term strategic plans. He and I first met at an executive immersion course for the Certified Travel Counselor (CTC) program and have been friends and colleagues since that time.”
Mr. Kunze, Sr. VP, added, “I am pleased to join the Fairways team and am convinced that we have the technology, the golf industry relationships, and most importantly, the understanding of the value of travel agents to the vacation sales process. Our goal will be to continue to offer high quality golf vacations and deliver ultimate customer service to our agency partners. Having sold products and services to travel agents for almost 15 years, I’m convinced that our niche tour wholesaler will provide a convenient way to book all the components to a golf vacation. The added benefit of working with Fairways’ professional staff and Alan, makes this opportunity all the more intriguing and compelling. We’re convinced that all well-run, service oriented companies can succeed in the travel industry over the long term.”
Mr. Hale further stated, “Our commitment to the travel agency community is that we will pay commissions promptly, provide transparent and uniformed pricing, and allow our partners to mark-up our products when packaging our vacations with other services.” Final marketing details are still being developed and company officials will be providing commission and pricing strategies to travel agents in the coming weeks as Fairways’ new websites are launched. Doug Haugen with Innovative Travel Acquisitions served as broker for the transaction.
More information: http://www.fairwaysgolfvacations.com or http://www.carbriwalk.com
