Africa and India may soon welcome more DP World Tour events as title sponsor DP World aims to expand golf into new, untapped markets.
DP World is committed to growing the sport globally when it signs a landmark partnership with the European Tour Group to become title sponsor of its 2022 Main Tour.
Since then, the DP World Tour has visited Japan for the first time and returned to destinations such as Thailand, Singapore and Bahrain that have been absent from the tour for many years.
Today, the Golf Global Tour lives up to its name, hosting 44 tournaments on five continents.
Although DP World's chief communications officer Daniel Van Otterdijk has visited 24 countries for this season's trip to Dubai, he is keen to cast his net wider.
One of these target regions is Africa. Although it is the second largest continent with 53 countries, Wentworth-based tours stop in only three of them: South Africa, Kenya and Mauritius.
India, the most populous country in the world, has only one DP World Tour event each season. Van Otterdijk and DP World saw an opportunity to change that.
“Together with the European Tour Group we hope to continue building the DP World Tour and be present in more places and spaces more frequently,” van Otterdyk told Gulf News.
Van Otterdijk (left) is Chief Communications Officer of DP World Group
Image source: Supplied
“In fact, this morning we were talking about the opportunity in India – it’s one of the huge, untapped markets that we have.
“I would say we only have one low- to mid-level event in Delhi, and that's across the country. When you consider there are 1.4 billion people there, it's a huge opportunity to look at next.
“I think for us the same is true for Africa. For example, we've seen the Rwandan market opening up in the last few years. There are some good golf courses there. Also now there's Senegal and Angola – which we've traditionally known It’s not just South Africa and Kenya.
“So I think our next step is to hopefully have the opportunity to go to other places and spaces that we've never been to before, not just the traditional places, which is the North American corridor and Asia.”
With the DP World Tour's 2025 schedule still under wraps, could we see these destinations added to its ever-expanding global lineup soon?
“I don't want to take responsibility for this!” he said.
“Listen, these things always take time, right? Holding a major tournament in India requires a lot of organizational work – a lot of different stakeholders, authorities, sponsors and broadcasters need to be involved to make it happen. But This can happen.
“We think we're definitely going to see that happen in the next two or three years. Certainly in places like Africa – and I'm not talking about South Africa or Kenya – but outside of those two countries.
“We actually had sports ministers from various countries calling us and saying, 'We'd like you to have a tournament here.'”
“There are a lot of opportunities – the key is to seize them.”
