Flexible pricing is coming to golf course green fees, much as Kakao T sets taxi fares by analyzing real-time demand and traffic conditions.
Kakao VX said on the 17th that it is rolling out Dynamic Pricing, an artificial intelligence-based variable green fee system, on Kakao Golf Reservation, its golf course booking platform.
The company said courses can draw more customers while golfers pay less to play. At one course in the Gyeongsang region, where Kakao VX manages one of the course’s three daily tee-time shifts under contract, rounds played rose 46% from a year earlier to 33,929 last year after the company piloted Dynamic Pricing. Annual revenue climbed 32% to 2.48 billion won ($1.8 million), while the average amount paid per golfer fell 9%.
Dynamic Pricing analyzes each course’s booking status and automatically generates hundreds of prices a day, linking in real time with the course’s enterprise resource planning system so changes take effect immediately. In July alone, the AI adjusted tee time prices 960 times at one Chungcheong-region course, 837 times at another, and 442 times at a Gyeongsang-region course.
Rion GC in Uiryeong, Gyeongsangnam-do, which Kakao VX operates under contract. Photo courtesy of Kakao VX
“Provincial golf courses under financial strain find it hard to hire staff dedicated to managing tee times,” a Kakao VX official said. “This system can take over the work of monitoring and adjusting prices for each tee time around the clock.” The official added, “We also confirmed that it helps to first open last-minute tee times, which have high cancellation rates, and then release prime-time slots in sequence.”
Still, not everything is left to AI. Kakao VX works with course operators to assess each site’s characteristics and circumstances, seeking price ranges and time slots that satisfy both the course and golfers. This year’s patterns may or may not resemble last year’s data, the company said, making close communication with course operators as important as the technology itself.
Kakao VX plans to run Dynamic Pricing initially at eight courses it manages under contract, including Uiryeong Rion, The Barn and Aegis Sky, and to expand the rollout gradually.