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Former Gurkha’s golf business in paradise

I was super excited to meet David Pettigrew from Golfsavers, who, after a lifetime of working in senior management positions in Asia, is helping golfers from across the world to share his passion and is now arranging golf trips for visitors to Thailand::

What was your life like before you came to Asia?

I have spent most of my life in Asia, but my early childhood was spent in UK based in Norfolk and then on the south coast in Sussex. I went to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1965 and was commissioned into the 6th Queen Elizabeth Own Gurkha Rifles and sent to Hong Kong in 1967.

I then served in Malaysia, Borneo, India, Brunei and Nepal but in 1973 decided to leave the army in Hong Kong and started my first travel company – Westminster Travel which I owned and ran for more than 25 year before selling out and returning to UK for a brief spell. The company is still going and is one of the largest in Hong Kong.

How did you get into Golf?

My last “proper” job was as Regional Director for the Hogg Robinson Group based in Singapore and after I retired from that I was approached by Diethelm Travel in Bangkok to become Regional Director with the brief of expanding their footprint in Asia. It was while I was working there that I started a golf division. My first attempt at selling golf online was not successful but I learnt a lot and I finally launched Golfsavers in 2016.

What’s the most challenging part of your career?

The most challenging aspect of launching an online business is gaining exposure – there are billions of websites and when you first launch you are virtually invisible. Learning and understanding how digital marketing works in a fast-changing digital landscape is very difficult and you can never relax on your laurels.

What’s the fun part?

Getting positive reviews from our customers – we are currently ranked 4.8 out of 5 on Trust pilot which gives me tremendous pride.

What are you working on right now?

I cannot share any details of what we are planning but we are not standing still, and you can expect some exciting developments in the second half of this year.

Give us a tip that has really worked for you and would help other Entrepreneurs

Focus on the customer concentrating on how every interaction helps the customer, rather than how it helps your business.