| Abstract: | ABSTRACT To understand the status of waiting lists within the private club industry, 1,000 members of the Club Managers Association of America were randomly selected to receive mail questionnaires. The analysis of 163 completed questionnaires indicated that 69% of the responding clubs did not have waiting lists. The majority of clubs with waiting lists were over 50 years old, member-owned, tax-exempt, and had 500 to 1,000 members and gross revenues minus initiation deposits of between five and ten million dollars per year. Logistic regression revealed that the odds of having a waiting list were 10.68 times greater for a club that had a Membership Committee than for a club that did not have such a committee. Two other factors found to predict the existence of a waiting list were a general membership that understands the importance of sponsoring members, and members that sponsor new members at a rate sufficient to overcome attrition. The following waiting list trends do not bode well for club membership in general: (1) the number of clubs with waiting lists is declining, (2) waiting lists are getting progressively shorter, and (3) members-in-waiting stay on lists for a shorter period of time. |
