What happens in Vegas… might just end up at a waterfront resort near you!
Splash City Golf co-founders Dan and Shawn recently attended IMEX America 2026 — one of the business events industry's biggest gatherings — at Mandalay Bay resort on the Las Vegas Strip. We spent a few days walking the floor, making connections, and bringing big ideas to waterfront resorts and venues from around the globe.
Here are our three biggest takeaways.
Waterfront resorts are always trying to monetize their shoreline
One of the draws of a trade show like IMEX America is that you’re surrounded by accomplished events industry professionals. The seasoned resort salespeople we spoke with immediately understood our pitch. They saw waterfront golf the way we do: as an opportunity to upsell their event clients and drive additional profit by activating their shoreline. Resorts are always looking for fresh ways to bring fun to their guests, and several resorts found that waterfront golf met that challenge.
Representatives from waterfront resorts know that their shoreline isn’t just a nice geographical feature — it’s a differentiator from land-locked properties. These resorts’ sales teams lean into their waterfront when pitching to business groups. At IMEX, many of them already started writing waterfront golf into their next presentations. Like the Michigan resort sales manager who had already picked out his dream tee-off spot on the beach — and went so far as to dial up 3D property maps on his laptop to show us potential activation areas on his resort.
ven major golf resorts could envision waterfront golf as a new way to engage their golf-obsessed groups. A representative from Casa de Campo Resort and Villas — home of Teeth of the Dog — imagined a waterfront driving range as a complement to its championship courses. Mauna Lani’s Director of Golf pictured a new way for golf guests to enjoy the property with their clubs in hand. We discussed with a sales manager at Ponte Vedra Inn & Club how he could add more golf to the resort beyond its 36 holes.
Sustainability remains a top priority for luxury waterfront resorts
Representatives from resorts ranging from Australia to the British Virgin Islands to Hawaii and everywhere in between had one thing in common: they were protective of their waterfront. Like most people that hear our waterfront golf pitch, they wanted to know how our Zero® Biodegradable Golf Ball would impact their bodies of water. We told them: the Zero® Ball is certified biodegradable and its primary ingredient, Polyvinyl Alcohol, is non-toxic and holds the EPA’s highest safety rating. In fact, our golf ball has the most robust biodegradability and non-toxicity documentation of any biodegradable golf ball on the market.
Because numbers don’t tell the whole story, we used a party trick to demonstrate the ball’s immediate degradation qualities. Sitting next to a resort representative at the Luxor Hotel & Casino bar one night, Dan and Shawn dipped a Zero® Ball in a cup of water. As soon as the ball got wet, the representative could see the beginnings of the biodegrading process.
When we visited booths on the show floor, we handed over a sleeve of our Zero® Balls. Time after time, recipients were shocked at how similar it looked and felt to a regular golf ball. Aside from sustainability, some other popular questions included: How far do the balls travel? How durable are they? How do they hit compared with regular golf balls? We could point to our performance report from testing done at Golf Laboratories, Inc that shows how the Zero® Ball outperforms its competitors.
IMEX America is the place to be
There were 3,800+ exhibitors at IMEX America 2026. The show floor sprawled with booths as far as the eye could see and was attended by more than 18,000 people. It’s Vegas, after all. “The first time you walk through the doors to the show, you’re hit by how much there is,” says Splash City co-founder Dan Bucci. “It’s a networker’s dream.”
We spoke with waterfront resorts from the USA, Australia, Bermuda, Dominican Republic, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Canada. In the end, we logged north of 20,000 steps per day, shared loads of great conversation, and handed out 60 tubes of our newly-packaged Zero® Ball four-packs. It was our fifth time attending IMEX, so we also relished the opportunity to rekindle some relationships built at that very first event and in the years since.
We found it useful to walk the trade show floor and approach our choice of exhibitors rather than set up our own booth and hope for the right foot traffic. If you’re attending IMEX for the first time next year and you hope to meet as many attendees as possible on your own schedule, consider doing the same — it leaves room for the casual, impromptu conversations that sometimes result in the best opportunities. One highlight for us: Tuesday happy hour at the Visit Bermuda booth. Those folks make a mean Dark 'N' Stormy!
What next?
Booked group business at IMEX? Offer them something fun and unique with waterfront golf. Contact us today to learn more about getting started.
