Television Programming Helps Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket Lead the Resale Market

Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket, Europe’s leading timeshare resale company, is blazing a trail for televising programs about timeshare. First, the company partnered with TATOC, the Timeshare Association, to broadcast a 30-minute informational program that aired on the Travel Channel. Now, Worldwide  Timeshare Hypermarket is creating 60-minute programs that focus on the offerings from particular timeshare resort developers. First up: Macdonald Resorts.

This past November, Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket joined together with TATOC, the Timeshare Association, to launch their first television broadcast, “Timeshare – History in the Making” – a 30-minute program explaining all the benefits associated with owning a timeshare – which has aired multiple times on both the Travel Deals Direct channel (Sky 647) and the Travel Channel. The program also is available to view on demand at www.traveldealsdirect.com.

“Timeshare – History in the Making” is split into several sections covering all aspects of timesharing and is interspersed with footage of typical timeshare resorts located on the Costa del Sol (Club La Costa, Marina del Sol), Cyprus (Paradise Kings Club) and Scotland (Macdonald Hotels & Resorts, Forest Hills).

Here’s an excerpt from the segment on Macdonald Forest Hills: “Forest Hills lochside resort is beautifully set in landscaped gardens and woodland on the shores of Loch Ard, ideal for exploring the magnificent Trossachs, Scotland’s first national park.” While any brochure or website can relay flowery prose and descriptive words, there is no substitute for the complementary video footage of Forest Hills and environs that accompanies them.

The broadcast also explains how exchange programs and memberships work, detailing the concepts of banking, trading and even bonus weeks and cruise exchange.

The presentation is the result of a combined effort between Philip Watson, managing director of Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket and Harry Taylor, the CEO for TATOC. Throughout the half-hour, Taylor offers his insight on things such as management fees and the beauty of being able to exchange worldwide. He also shares his experiences as a timeshare owner. What’s more, Taylor explains the basic premise of timeshare so that even someone without any timesharing experience can understand.  The idea behind the show is to educate people about timesharing in the comfort of their own homes.

This special program was the first of what is to be many, says Watson. And now, he says, Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket is introducing longer programming, announced in December 2009 at The FORUM event in London, with Macdonald Hotels & Resorts as the first client to participate. Rather than focus on just one Macdonald property, the show will be much broader. “We will create either two half-hour programs or an hour-long program that will promote Macdonald in total,” explains Watson, “so you would have all their hotels, their resorts and their rental program – and maybe even a fly-buy program in there – so that you’re concentrating on one group of resorts” and all that they have to offer.

Of course, by the time you read this, Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket may have already finalized additional deals to create further 60-minute television specials. “We’re also discussing the possibility of creating such an hour-long program with Club La Costa and one or two other major groups,” Watson says, noting that another program launch is likely for March.

Key to all this is Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket’s relationship with television outlets; while any decent marketing agency could create a video, Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket’s agreement with the appropriate channels and networks turns a video into an actual television program. “We’ve increased the sponsorship contract with the Travel Channel for a further year,” says Watson. “We’re in discussions with Sky Travel at the moment to do exactly the same thing, but I can’t say any more than that at present.”

The Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket Difference
Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket is proud to be one of the market leaders in secondary timeshare resales, providing to both buyers and sellers a very safe and professional service. With Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket’s parent company being a developer, they have found from experience that among some of the main reasons why people do not buy timeshare direct from the developer is either the product is too highly priced for them, or they do not like the sales tactics/environment used.

Therefore when it came to resales, Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket take a step back and allow both the buyer and the seller to approach them, which leaves buyers and sellers feeling relaxed and in control. Under no circumstances does Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket cold call, so the client never feels under pressure from the staff at any time.

Instead, the company advertises extensively on international and national television and in the press, which means the client first has to call if they wish to either purchase or sell a timeshare. Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket is then able to offer a full service for clients from beginning to end. The company advertises sellers’ weeks in the press as well as on their website; once a buyer is found, Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket completes the transfer on the seller’s behalf, taking all the hassle out of having to sell privately.

For the purchaser, Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket determines which product would suit their requirements and budget – and again, the company conducts a full transfer service where all the client needs to do is sit back, relax and when they become the legal owner enjoy their timeshare along with the family.

All monies are held in trust by Resort Fiduciary Services until the transfer is complete so the client knows they can relax happy with the knowledge that their money is safe until they become seen as the legal owner. Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket does not take deposits and allows a full 14-day cooling off period; should the potential client be unable to afford the cost up front, Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket is able to assist them with membership to WorldWide Plus, which is a club card allowing them to purchase with 6 months interest free and nothing to pay for 6 months.

Afterwards they can use this card on a similar basis to purchase further Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket products if they wish. This club card is supplied by H.M.C Funding and Barclay Partner Finance – Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket was the first European timeshare company to be offered this product.

Being a member of RDO (Resort Development Organization, which formerly was OTE/Organisation for Timeshare in Europe) is integral to Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket’s beliefs and methods of working. RDO has provided a solid framework upon which Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket has built a  professional and efficient procedure in assisting their customers, be they buyers or sellers, and this provides those customers with the confidence that they deserve when they are dealing with a reputable and trustworthy organization.

Macdonald Hotels & Resorts is the first shared-ownership developer to take advantage of Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket's 60-minute TV programming offer

RDO not only ensures that its member companies are operating correctly, but it also works tirelessly to promote the image of timeshare throughout Europe. In this regard Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket shares a common purpose and they are extremely proud of their involvement with RDO. They are also proud to add to the company’s close association with TATOC, whom they support and assist in every way that they can.

Future Collaborations
“I think it is absolutely vital that resale companies and developers have a good working relationship and provide a good level of service for their customers, both old and new,” Watson says. “This is one of the key reasons why I am always looking at ways to improve the developer’s understanding of who we are and how we operate.” In addition to the television programming, Watson says that another result of this has been Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket’s “Indulgence” trial membership package, which allows the company to tap into the large market of new-to-timeshare customers while providing good quality leads to their partner developers.

“Other than this mutually beneficial relationship, it is key that we work closely with both the developers and trustees when we are processing a transfer of ownership and the flow of information between all parties involved and a speedy and efficient process serves to enhance our reputation and that of the resort,” notes Watson.

“We also offer wholesale purchases for developers and marketers; in some instances certain resorts have the ability, through using our stock, to sell additional exchange member resort week(s) to exchange members when they exchange onto their resorts, which works very well,” he says. “We can also come to arrangements with developer resorts that take in exchange weeks through their sales teams whereby we can take these weeks off their hands.”

For more information about creating a television program about your resort(s) or otherwise working with Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket, call +44 870 443 1466 or visit www.timeshare-hypermarket.com.

About Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket
Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket is a highly professional company with an excellent reputation for customer care. We have been trading in timeshare resales for more than 12 years and currently have the largest database of timeshare weeks available, plus a long waiting list of buyers who are eager for specific weeks when they become available.

Our European Headquarters are located in Bournemouth, Dorset in the United Kingdom, so we conduct our business strictly in line with the Timeshare Act of 1992. We specialize in matching buyers to sellers and handle over 1000 such transactions each and every week, so when you are dealing with us, you can rest assured that you are dealing with the best in the business.

When buying through Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket, you can be sure that you are in safe hands, with full protection provided. Your monies are deposited in an escrow account, administered by Resort Fiduciary Services Ltd. This means that no funds will be released until title has been transferred to the purchaser’s name, ensuring both parties to the agreement of sale are fully protected at all times.

We are full members of Resort Development Organisation (RDO), the governing body for timeshare in Europe. This association allows us to offer a safe and professional service to all our clients, ensuring that all legal obligations are adhered to every step of the way.

We are also Platinum Affiliates with TATOC the Timeshare Owners Association that is run on behalf of Timeshare owners by Timeshare owners.

By Paul Mattimoe, President & CEO, Perspective International

Over the past couple of years I have sat at conferences and listened to many sessions about Social Media and Internet Marketing with speeches from marketing gurus trying to explain why the shared ownership industry should jump on board – but even now in 2010 we still have sessions such as “Social Media: Is it just Hype?” which shows that many people are just not understanding the importance of implementing these powerful tools, and so I thought I would share with you some statistics, guidelines of how to get involved and some defining results we have achieved by using internet marketing and social media, so we can all move forward faster as an industry.

With old-style marketing methods consistently providing less volume or less quality results whilst becoming extortionately more expensive than in the past there is an urgent need for a more cost efficient way to produce qualified tours or sales leads throughout the timeshare and fractional industry. Finally some of the
larger companies are venturing into TV advertising as this is no longer as expensive as it used to be and reaches a mass market, providing results that usually are very satisfactory on a per prospect cost. But for
many this may still not be the way to go yet – however online marketing is, and is scalable to meet all budgets and volume requirements.

But before I tell you how fantastic online marketing is, which it is, I first need to explain, as a magazine publisher, that I am not suggesting that online marketing is the answer to all your problems, you will still need to use other marketing channels and recently print and online have become extensively intertwined to complement each other perfectly in a way that is only noticeable (to the detriment of your bottom line) when one is removed, and I’ll give examples of this shortly, but for now understand that online marketing should be looked at as an additional, affordable spend, not a replacement for other marketing channels in an attempt to reduce overall spend.

So why should you take internet advertising and social media marketing so seriously? Well for the price of one new employee; yes just one person is usually enough for most companies – but the right one, that’s  talented in online marketing, not just SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) as this is not the same thing, but someone that can draft out and execute ongoing and interlinked marketing campaigns who by default implements SEO strategies anyway, you will be able to significantly change your online presence.

Alternatively, you can outsource this, it is more expensive but sometimes more convenient, usually a web specialist company will only allocate one person to do the work also. Therefore, in either case, this one  person can then begin to build your online presence amongst the masses:

• 234 million – The number of websites as of December 2009.
• 47 million – Added websites in 2009.

As you can see there are a phenomenal number of other websites on the internet, but the good news is that means there are many, many more internet users:

• 1.73 billion – Internet users worldwide (September 2009).
• 18% – Increase in Internet users since the previous year.
• 738,257,230 – Internet users in Asia.
• 418,029,796 – Internet users in Europe.
• 252,908,000 – Internet users in North America.
• 179,031,479 – Internet users in Latin America / Caribbean.
• 67,371,700 – Internet users in Africa.
• 57,425,046 – Internet users in the Middle East.
• 20,970,490 – Internet users in Oceania / Australia.

And this is why you should be concentrating on the internet as one of your marketing channels, as with the right marketing campaign you could target your share of the rapidly rising millions of prospective clients.

Where are you going wrong?
Well, hopefully you are not, but unfortunately if all you have is a corporate / resort website or two and they are not on the first page of the search engines for search terms such as timeshare, timeshare resorts, timeshare resorts in (your region), or similar for vacation ownership, fractional ownership etc and all you rank for is your own company or resort name then I’m afraid you are going wrong.

Also, if you buy email lists to send email blasts you are probably wasting time and money – why?
• 90 trillion – The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2009.
• 247 billion – Average number of email messages per day.
• 1.4 billion – The number of email users worldwide.
• 100 million – New email users since the year before.
• 81% – The percentage of emails that were spam.
• 92% – Peak spam levels late in the year.
• 24% – Increase in spam since last year.
• 200 billion – The number of spam emails per day (assuming 81% are spam).

That’s why – if more than 4 out of 5 emails are considered SPAM (regardless of whether you bought opt in email addresses or not) then the recipient is unlikely to read it let alone respond to it. This did work quite well a couple of years ago, but with recent growth it just doesn’t now.

Internet Advertising
Internet advertising is predominantly made up of buying banner advertising on selected websites or Pay per Click advertising with companies like Google on their search pages.

Firstly Pay per Click, this does work but is becoming increasingly expensive as companies continue to try to out bid each other for the top spots thus hiking up the prices for each keyword. There are also suggestions that more than 30%-50% of all clicks are not genuine visits for one reason or another and although not yet substantiated either way you do need to weigh up the cost of what you spend on this to the actual results you get very early on to determine whether this is a profitable route for you to take.

Banner Advertising is another strange one – Do you choose another industry related site to advertise on that may well not have that much traffic but results should be targeted, or advertise on a high traffic site such as a news website or comparison site and get a larger flow of traffic to your site that are not targeted at all?

Well, that’s trial and error depending on your marketing campaign style and more importantly budget, it’s a numbers game after all, so the more you have the more sales you may well make – well that’s all OK if you
are paying for the number of click thrus you get to your website, but if you are paying for the number of banner ad impressions (the number of times your ad appears on the screen) regardless of who sees it and
who clicks on it can get very costly as average online click thru rates for banner advertising are just 0.5% of the number of ad impressions.

In all cases try not to buy packages based on impressions, but on results (click thrus) and then base your long term decision on conversions of those click thrus and your new employee or web agency can monitor and track this for you.

Social Media Marketing
Welcome to the new Wild West, where anything can happen and you can win or lose depending on how you conduct your business online – the only sure thing is that you need to play this game.

There are two main reasons why the shared ownership industry are slow to get involved with Social Media Marketing, one is that it’s quite hard to make it work and even harder to explain how to make it work to a novice – so get that expert involved; and two is the fear of drawing the wrong attention to themselves and
encouraging a barrage of negative reviews.

This second reason needs addressing here – there are already plenty of negative reviews relating to our industry in general (and most of the individual companies involved) on the internet, many are inaccurate but damaging all the same. However, take a look at all other industries and they get the same treatment, browse around TripAdvisor.com and you will see fantastic major brand 5* hotels with amazingly positive reviews and right next to them another visitor to the hotel on the same week says it’s the worst place they have ever
been and recommend against going.

Now, I am not going to use the saying “All publicity is good publicity” in this scenario, but whilst the hotels on TripAdvisor.com have no control over what is written on that website, it is beneficial for you as a developer for example to distribute regular positive content onto the internet about your resort(s) and you can do this using social media such as Twitter, Facebook etc for consumer centric marketing. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr These are the best social media channels, particularly for the shared ownership industry and here’s a few more interesting statistics for you:

Social Media Sites
• 126 million – The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse).
• 84% – Percent of social network sites with more women than men.
• 27.3 million – Number of tweets on Twitter per day (November, 2009)
• 57% – Percentage of Twitter’s user base located in the United States.
• 4.25 million – People following @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher, Twitter’s most followed user).
• 350 million – People on Facebook.
• 50% – Percentage of Facebook users that log in every day.
• 500,000 – The number of active Facebook applications.

Images
• 4 billion – Photos hosted by Flickr (October 2009).
• 2.5 billion – Photos uploaded each month to Facebook.
• 30 billion – At the current rate, the number of photos uploaded to Facebook per year.

Videos
• 1 billion – The total number of videos YouTube serves in one day.
• 12.2 billion – Videos viewed per month on YouTube in the US (November 2009).
• 924 million – Videos viewed per month on Hulu in the US (November 2009).
• 182 – The number of online videos the average Internet user watches in a month (USA).
• 82% – Percentage of Internet users that view videos online (USA).
• 39.4% – YouTube online video market share (USA).
• 81.9% – Percentage of embedded videos on blogs that are YouTube videos.

Here is where you realise that just having someone in the office tweeting away or running a Facebook page about your company (as many of you do) is not going to work for you.

It’s all about volume – if you don’t have thousands of fans on Facebook and you are trying to market to a few hundred or less you will not make any impact. There may be 14.5 million Twitter Users, but recent stats show that a staggering 73% of those users are no longer actively tweeting and 74% of those have less than 10 followers. This is because many give it a go because someone said they should, don’t understand it and so then don’t use it. However, that means that 17% of all Twitter users (nearly 2.5 million) are responsible for
27.3 million tweets per day, an average of 11 tweets each per day.

In our own company, after several months we have mastered Twitter and now have nearly 30,000 twitter followers over five accounts (with numbers rising daily) which successfully generates both traffic to our websites and subscriptions to our trade and consumer magazines. We have yet to master Facebook though which we find is hard to attract consumers to Owners Perspective Magazine when our wall (area to post comments) is full of comments from industry professionals on all manner of subjects and we have little or no
control over it.

How do you attract the right demographic?
Well it’s obvious that not all 1.73 billion internet users are prospective clients, it’s more like a fraction of that usually based on age, location, interest and income, but you can target marketing campaigns to all of these factors and more. For example, you may have dabbled with Twitter, but did you know there were external programs you can use to attract twitter followers based on specific keywords or interests within a specific mile radius of any city? A properly structured social media campaign could be concentrated specifically
on potential clients within driving distance of your resort, and then filtered to those that like golf, spas, fine dining, skiing, water sports etc.

Once again though, this is where I would encourage you to spend the money on a social media expert. But imagine the power and difference in cost of this over direct mail advertising and all the while you are also creating an online footprint of positive content about yourselves and your resort(s) which over time builds up your brand awareness and credibility to the generations that turn to the internet for answers, assurances and comparisons before they buy anything.

Is Social Media The Answer To All Your Prayers?
There are many other things you can do with Social Media which I will detail in later editions of Perspective Magazine, such as using it to communicate with just your members to encourage referrals, rentals and upgrades. Social Media will certainly be King on the internet for several years to come at least…

According to comScore, total social networking access via mobile browsers on all mobile phones rose to 11.1% at the start of 2010 — this was up from 6.5% in 2009. Most of this growth was in the uptake in smart phone usage. When it comes to specific social networks, Twitter and Facebook both had increases in mobile browser usage in the triple digits. Twitter usage via mobile browsers was up 347% while Facebook mobile browser usage was up 112%. It’s important to note that these figures are just from mobile browser statistics — they don’t even take into account the use of mobile applications for Twitter or Facebook that have been released recently which are now propelling usage ever higher.

…But, despite all of this the answer to the question is no, social media is not the answer to all your prayers when it comes to lead generation, you still need to market to your existing owners and invest in offline advertising – but you should ensure that social media is added to your core marketing campaigns moving forward.

What We’ve Done So Far With Social Media

Owners Perspective Magazine
Website traffic attributed to:
55% Offline Marketing
26% Search Engine Traffic
19% Social Media Marketing
In this case our offline marketing is the strongest element, but this is because we have our consumer magazine in 150+ first class airport lounges and selected hotels, resorts, golf clubs and spas worldwide as well as individual print subscription which drive people to our website for the latest content and to register.

Our search engine traffic comes from high rankings achieved over the past year. But nearly 20% of our traffic is from Social Media, most of which can be attributed to Twitter on which we post our latest news, articles and reader offers for our advertisers.
Visit www.ownersperspective.com for more information.

Perspective Magazine
Website traffic attributed to:
42% Offline Marketing
34% Search Engine Traffic
24% Social Media Marketing
Offline marketing is from our trade magazine which is distributed to 9,572 industry professionals around the word and again search engine traffic comes from Number 1 rankings for terms such as “timeshare news”.
The social media element is higher here as news related content tends to do really well and attracts a lot of new traffic.
Visit www.perspectivemagazine.com for more information

Perspective Forums
61% Email Marketing
39% Social Media Marketing
Perspective Forums is our shot at creating a B2B Social Networking site which after just one month has become the largest online social media group for the Shared Ownership industry with more than 1,000 registered users and rising fast. The first two weeks saw the site process more than 2,000 friend requests.
For this we emailed our Perspective Magazine database and used social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to attract the rest, as our site incorporates the best features of each all on one website. In the coming months the search engines will also contribute to our traffic, as will our print magazines.
Visit www.perspectiveforums.com for more information.

As we all know, the past year or two have been some of the most challenging our industry has seen in a very long time. And while not every company around the globe suffered from the credit crisis, scores did, and the ripple effect meant that many suppliers and other industry-related companies paid the price as well.
By Matt McDaniel, editor

Today, though, the consensus is that the shared-ownership industry is stabilizing and regaining its footing. And, along the lines of “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” the still-standing operators are lean and hungry to regain some semblance of their previous sales revenues.

In this edition, we’ve asked several influential EMEAA market leaders to talk about the state of the industry, its biggest challenges going forward, the availability of finance and the impact on exchange. Each  shared-ownership industry leader was individually asked to respond to the same five questions. The participants, in alphabetical order, are Mark Attwood, group sales and marketing director, Karma Royal Group; Paul Gardner Bougaard, chief executive, Resort Development Organisation (RDO); Ramy Filo, president of the Australian Timeshare and Holiday Ownership Council (ATHOC) and CEO and managing director of the Classic Group; Peter Hutchinson, Group Chairman, Citadel Trustees; Shaun Lamont, managing director, Club Leisure Group; Bryan Lunt, chairman, Absolute Group of Companies; Leslie McCann, group marketing director, Seasons Holidays; Richard McIntosh, chairman of the Resort Development Organisation (RDO) and managing director, Hilton Grand Vacations; and Nick Turner, vice president & head of new business development, The Registry Collection.

From your perspective, what is the current state of the shared-ownership industry?

Mark Attwood: I can’t really comment about outside Asia. In Asia, timeshare activity is very small. There is not much developer activity. The industry surged in the last decade but there are few reputable developers left.

Paul Gardner Bougaard, chief executive, Resort Development Organisation (RDO)

Paul Gardner Bougaard: From the RDO perspective, I think the industry in Europe is in remarkably good shape, bearing in mind that the world’s economies have been through the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Whilst we’re not yet out of this and many countries in Europe have yet to announce measures to deal with the debt incurred in supporting their economies, I think it’s apparent that consumers continue to value the certainty of their shared ownership and see this as an important element of their lifestyle. I am therefore confident that the timeshare product continues to have a strong future even though we still have a lot of work to do to educate the media and public in Europe. I think the fractional side of the industry is still very much in its infancy in Europe and there is a huge task ahead in educating the public and media as to the attractions and advantages of the product. The fractional industry desperately needs to organize itself under a trade association in order to speak with a unified voice and get those messages out. We have set FSOTA up for that purpose and will work hard this year to recruit new members to support this education program.

Ramy Filo: The past 12 months have been challenging for companies in Australia. Some companies were quick to react to the situation and resulted in maintaining the momentum or increasing volumes. Other companies struggled in the current market conditions. All companies looked at their own backyard and restructured and focused on core businesses while maximizing revenue from their current member base.

Peter Hutchinson: The propensity of the public to commit to high ticket value leisure products in a recession is heavily reduced. However, in these days of tiny returns on funds invested with banks, some resorts can benefit from a switch of emphasis to investment returns. This cannot work in the conventional timeshare model of 50%+ sales and marketing costs, but it can work with a lower markup fractional product. There are other criteria which need to be fulfilled, such as a long high season, good rental income, etc. Also, there is the need to guard against the product being classified as a Collective Investment Scheme, which can severely restrict the sales potential. However, addressing these issues will potentially open the door to a significant alternative sales source.

Shaun Lamont: The Southern African Vacation ownership industry continues to flourish in both the fractional and points-based sales. We experienced market penetration and growth in 2008 of 27% and 6% in 2009, which I believe is phenomenal considering the current economy.

Bryan Lunt: In Asia we can only see the growth we are experiencing and the influx of quality staff due to recent downturns in the European and American markets and the closure/downsizing in Australia of several [sales lines] of Accor and Wyndham. I have seen and heard about a huge slowdown in the U.S. fractional markets as well as downsizing of many timesharing companies due to restricted cash flow.

Leslie McCann, group marketing director, Seasons Holidays

Leslie McCann: At industry events there’s a sense of gloom and despondency at the moment, which could turn out to be a selffulfilling prophecy. Really, we at Seasons feel very positive about the future – the  industry’s usually very good at adapting and evolving. There’s the uncertainty regarding consumer finance; as a result of the credit crunch having consumers who want the product but are rejected at the finance stage is a serious issue we haven’t had to face before. So the industry must evolve internal finance packages to support the very valuable external unsecured consumer loans that are available.

Richard McIntosh: Everything goes in cycles, and the shared ownership industry is no different. The ability to purchase for many may be slightly reduced at present, but this is only temporary, and as sure as the sun rises, so will demand return. Shared ownership is about holidays and leisure time, and in future we will see an even greater demand for our products as leisure time and life expectancies continue to grow.

Nick Turner: From my personal experience, in the last six months, lifestyle based products continue to be marketed with the emphasis on the best value and the best quality. People are still buying and are looking for great units with equally great specs, and want to know what the annual cost is going to be.

What are the biggest challenges facing the industry now and going forward?

Attwood: In Asia the biggest challenge is to create consumer desire for the product. In India it is to stop “pack companies” from wreaking havoc as they did in Europe.

Bougaard: I think timeshare faces two sets of challenges. Firstly the issues over resales and maintenance fees remain areas where the industry has to do more work. There are no easy answers to the resale issues but RDO will continue to work with its members to educate the public on this and to urge sellers to use resale companies who are RDO members. On maintenance fees I think we have failed to get the message across on
the influences at play on maintenance fees in general and although RDO’s 2009 industry survey demonstrated that fees had not risen disproportionately, we will be getting more information out on this during the year in our social network media program. The second set of challenges relate to the unscrupulous elements at the fringes of the industry seeking to take advantage of those consumers struggling in these current economic difficulties. The expansion of the Internet and the currently relatively low cost of TV advertising, particularly in the UK has led to a huge rise in the numbers of these organizations and RDO needs to and will defend consumers and its members against these people.

As to fractionals, the biggest challenge they face is getting the word out about the product in Europe. I am aware that individually, RCI and II are working on this, but as RDO speaks for the timeshare industry, so FSOTA should speak for the fractional industry and provide a focus for the media and a source of education and information for the public. That can only happen if developers and others in the industry join FSOTA and thereby provide it with the funds to pursue these programs. If they don’t then I am worried the industry will remain fragmented and not gain a foothold in Europe.

Ramy Filo, president of the Australian Timeshare and Holiday Ownership Council (ATHOC) and CEO and managing director of the Classic Group

Filo: The industry in Australia faces similar challenges that are faced in other markets such as regulation and compliance, cost of sales and marketing, and consumer finance. Moving forward there are similar challenges with the addition of the competition from other lifestyle products; products need to change to meet consumer expectations and competition from other lifestyle products.

Hutchinson: High annual costs of usage, in the form of maintenance and exchange costs. The winners will be those who address these areas and include them, as far as possible, in the capital sum. We need to recognize that, in times of recession, people who are still in employment are actually better off than previously! They have the capital to buy the product, but not the confidence to commit to long term annual expenditure. Addressing and reducing or capping these annual costs is crucial to ongoing success.

Lamont: The age of the traditional timeshare owner is of concern. Generally these are owners that purchased their traditional timeshare 20 to 25 years ago. Their needs have changed and they are well into their retirement. Continued affordability by this income bracket and the knock on effect maintaining resort standards needs to be carefully monitored.

Lunt: Industry challenges are the need to keep products real. I guess pack companies don’t help doing justice to the industry when product is smoke screened and not real compared to this companies who have invested real $$$$ into projects.

McCann: Generally the timeshare industry itself has got an undeserved poor reputation mainly caused by the activities of non-asset-based, unregulated holiday clubs. Thankfully there’s new legislation coming in, which puts us all on the same level playing field. But the attacks on the television and in the papers encouraging dissatisfaction among timeshare owners are sometimes creating the impression in owners’ minds that there must be something wrong with the product. But generally speaking, decades into the purchase, most timeshare owners in Britain and throughout Europe are satisfied with their purchase. So a challenge to the industry is how we’re going to react to this unfair attack on us by certain bogus resale companies and compensation groups.

Richard McIntosh, chairman of the Resort Development Organisation (RDO) and managing director, Hilton Grand Vacations

McIntosh: We must remember that every year we accommodate millions of shared ownership owners at our resorts, members who are enjoying today the decision they made to buy yesterday. We must continue to focus on looking after these guests by enhancing their holiday and leisure experiences, as their advocacy is critical to our future.

Turner: If I base this answer on fractional, in the UK now, there is reasonable awareness from middle-high income families. The challenge is to engage with the consumer/buying public especially in Europe. For the UK buyers, we should see a steady rise in fractional products post General Election.

Are we set to return to normal, or to a new normal?

Attwood: There has been no normal in Asia!

Bougaard: I think we are facing a period of economic difficulty and also environmental challenges so it’s probably a new normal. As a result consumers will be looking for value for money and products that meet their own perception of the environmental challenges ahead. I am confident our members can and will meet that challenge.

Filo: We are set to return to normal, but, there is an opportunity to forge niche opportunities as a result of what we all have learnt over the last 12 months.

Hutchinson: As and when consumer confidence returns we will see a return to previous sales performances. When will that be? In my opinion, it will be gradual over at least 5 years, by which time, I am sure the product will have evolved further to reflect the joint issues of high maintenance and exchange costs.

Lamont: I don’t believe their will ever be a “normal” again, but rather greater opportunities to introduce niche market products into the industry rather than the traditional approach of the past.

Bryan Lunt, chairman, Absolute Group of Companies

Lunt: What is normal? Business always has cycles and on downturns the tough get tougher and weaker ones crumble, whereas in good markets everyone finds it easy and then we have too much competition… Of course now everyone seems to be much more careful how they spend their hard-earnt money and this gives in general the shared-ownership industry even more sales opportunities.

McCann: A new normal. I think overall for the industry, 2010 is not going to be an easy one, especially for people in start-up situations and single-site resorts. I think it will be a steady one for the established hotel brands and strong independent brands – I suspect they will manage to maintain reasonable returns – but for new start-ups it’s challenging to get funding, development finance from banks and to sell consumers a pre-construction real estate product right now when’s there’s some uncertainty about property values. People are less likely to take a risk. I think there are a lot of challenges to see new growth in traditional timeshare – I think the new normal will be better targeting. We need to target more accurately what our market is, spend less on reaching that target market, and make sure we’ve got a product that’s appropriate for that market.

McIntosh: In my 25 years in this business, I have never known “normal” – all I have known is change. Change usually delivers things for the better, for our guests and in turn for our businesses, but only if you focus on the guest. For me it’s positive and all about change.

Turner: It is the beginning of a new normal. The days are gone when people threw money into buying second homes, etc. The new normal is all about the value-conscious lifestyle buyer. The emphasis is on more value, less cost and tailor making the second-home ownership.

How would you describe the current state of the availability of finance – for consumers and developers – and how do you see things going through the rest of 2010?

Bougaard: In 2009 the industry in Europe saw a withdrawal from the market of one consumer finance provider, but during that year there has also been at least one new entrant to the market and a continuance of lending by another. In general I believe lenders see the timeshare product as a good lending line with low default rates and high consumer satisfaction. I do not therefore have great concerns over the availability of consumer finance in Europe for UK buyers, who are still the biggest buyers of timeshare in the EU, but it would be good to see more finance available for other EU nationalities.

Filo: Australia was not hit as hard by GFC on finance in our industry directly on consumer finance; however, banks have tightened up their conditions. The low interest rates provided by traditional banking institutions have opened up new sources of funding from investors wanting a higher return.

Peter Hutchinson, group chairman, Citadel Trustees

Hutchinson: The availability of finance for developers and non UK + Irish consumers in Europe has always been very limited and hence the recession has brought little change! For UK + Irish consumers, however, there is now only one major credit provider in the industry for this key market and the fallout from their withdrawal would be cataclysmic! The only way developers can cater for this potential hit to sales is to prepare to provide in-house consumer finance: This entails preparing the necessary paperwork (a not-inconsiderable task), which will need to cater for the loans being transferable to a new lender without further reference to the buyer. The developer will also need to look at the cashflow implications and prepare revised release rates of sales commission and incentives to buyers and salesmen alike to achieve as many cash deals as possible. In the long run, those that can cope with this setback will benefit substantially from the income from high interest rates.

Lamont: Southern Africa is in a “fortunate” situation – we experienced what the global market experienced in 2008/2009, 15 years ago. This forced us to change the rules of the game and slowly introduce “self funding” to sustain growth. The first few years were extremely challenging but we are reaping the rewards thereof now, 12 years down the line where the management of “in house” funding and a mature debtors book alleviate the need to outsource finance.

Lunt: There is no finance available for us so we went out and created our own Absolute Finance Worldwide and we have been forced to finance our own products to help sales reach this year’s targets. The banks are not lending – as I said everyone is more careful these days so to offer finance, customers are seeing this as a great opportunity. We’d all love to drive a new Ferrari, Bentley or Rolls Royce – it’s just a matter of how much will it cost me per month … if it’s affordable we’d do it! That’s what we have created with Absolute
World products.

McCann: I think the outlook is pretty gloomy for 2010. All of us who are fortunate enough to have an unsecured consumer finance facility should do our absolute utmost to protect that facility by making sure that the clients are sold in a professional, responsible way to ensure that the institutions that are currently in the market don’t suddenly get cold feet. It only takes one developer to sell in an irresponsible way for us to lose a major institution and that would have a devastating consequence for the whole industry because, in the British market at least, we’re in the hands of one main lender. The established players with a good track record will continue to be able to draw down loan facilities. If people are not able to demonstrate real success in our industry in the last 12 months, it’s going to be harder to borrow money to build new. Certainly as a start-up it will be very difficult. The irony is this is a time of opportunity with real estate being keenly priced – now is the time for developers to get in. But unfortunately, it’s not just about the acquisition costs.

Nick Turner, vice president & head of new business development, The Registry Collection

Turner: Regarding consumer finance: The current state of finance availability is frustrating and slow. There are only a small amount of financial institutions offering finance at the moment. We need to see a broader adoption of fractional products by the high street banks in the next 12 months and interest rates from some lenders coming down. Regarding developer finance: There have been a number of large institutions sitting on the fence for the past 18 months watching asset values drop. Mixed-use developments such as hotels with golf, spa facilities, etc. seem to have more comfort for the institutional investors.

Are people exchanging more or less? How has exchange demand been affected?

Mark Attwood, group sales and marketing director, Karma Royal Group

Attwood: In India we find members are exchanging abroad more than before.

Filo: There is no doubt the GFC has a dramatic influence on every part of the industry, including the exchange patterns of the timeshare owners. Long-haul exchanges literally disappeared faster then what the international airlines were able to reduce the number of their international flights. The demand for domestic and short-haul exchange space increased to compensate, and the number of owners deciding to go back and use their hone resort during 2008 and early 2009 was also very evident from all reports. Having said that, the timeshare community is fairly resilient, or at least that’s the experience certainly in Australia and New Zealand. Having paid their annual levies, the majority of owners went ahead and made use of their entitlements either using within their home resort or club, or exchanging to other local destinations. By mid-2009, the exchange demand for the longer-haul destinations had gone back to pre-GFC times and the start of 2010 has been nothing but highly surprising at the number of owners looking for exchange holidays again.

Shaun Lamont, managing director, Club Leisure Group

Lamont: Based on our statistics, exchanges have continued to increase over the last few years. I believe this is as a result of the value of and advantages of owning a timeshare product for vacations rather than looking at more expensive alternatives like hotel accommodation or owning a private condo. The consumer has been forced to watch every cent as a result of the economy, and is realizing the value and competitive pricing of their timeshare acquisition versus the more costly alternatives.

Lunt: Definitely – people have committed to the shared ownership industry, whether via fractional ownership or vacation club memberships, and these owners will use their time wisely looking to get the most out of what they have bought. Exchange demand has surprisingly risen – albeit a small amount during the last year or so.

McCann: Slightly less. There was certainly a higher demand for our UK sites last year. I think this is a reflection of owners, particularly last year, frightened off by the strong euro. I think there’ll be more of that this year – families will tend to stay in country or go to drive to European destinations if they can. For us, the number of exchange guests in the UK last year was lower than normal because there was more space taken up by members wanting to holiday within the UK. There was a slight decrease in exchange activity and a slight
increase in members using their own resorts within the British Isles.

Turner: All exchange platforms are robust models. People are trying to utilize all their second-home time instead of wasting it, as every penny counts. They want to get the most out of their exchange. Exchanges are continuing – especially in The Registry Collection – more members mean more exchanges.

A Final Word
Overall, it seems that the shared-ownership industry is on the path to recovery. But it is important to learn the lessons from the events that brought us to our knees if we are to minimize the effects of the next cycle. And the next cycle will come – it may be 25 years from now or it may be much sooner, but it will come.

Obviously Pestana Vacation Club is doing something right. They’ve been in the business 25 years, building success upon success and accumulating thousands of satisfied owners during that time.

And although they’ve been in business for a long time, from the timeshare company’s outset in 1985 they’ve kept the same philosophy of creating fully integrated mixed-use hotel-timeshare resorts in Portugal and haven’t deviated from that – and it’s worked quite well for them. “It gives the consumers a peace of mind in knowing that they are being taken care of by the management of a professional hotel company while they enjoying the services and facilities of beautiful 5-star hotels,” Booth says.

Peter Booth

So as Pestana Vacation Club celebrates its silver anniversary, Perspective Magazine International Edition editor Matt McDaniel decided to interview Peter Booth, group managing director of Pestana Vacation Club, to talk about how the club started and what makes it so successful to this day.

What’s unique about your company?
What’s interesting with us is that we’ve been around a long time, so we’ve seen the good and the bad about this business. It helps if you’ve had that track record in the business and it’s helped us also the fact that in the beginning we came up with a philosophy of integrating our vacation clubs into our hotel properties and we stuck with that because it’s worked for us for the past 25 years. It’s helped us that we set out on the right course initially. I started the business back in 1985, so we have consistency in our management team: myself, our financial director, our operations director – these people have all been with us for 20 years or more, so we have a strong, consistent team of people that has been with us for a long time.

The other thing we really work hard on is our service approach – that’s what I would think sets us apart from many other resort operators in this business. When people come back to our resorts year after year, they receive higher levels of service than if they were staying with us for the first time. Because they’re a VIP client for us, they’re a loyal client. We have a file on each of our 26,000 owners, and before they arrive we go back and we look into what their needs and special requirements are. For instance, one time one of our guests left a comment saying he found the bed pillows a bit too soft. So the next year when he comes back, we’ve got to make sure that he doesn’t have to ask for firmer pillows again; they’re automatically there. We track each one of our 26,000 owners very closely, and we work on being able to fulfill and meet their needs. I think that’s why 50% of our owners come back and stay with us each year – which is quite high in this business.

You started Pestana’s vacation ownership division – tell me how you got started in the industry.
I was living and working in South Africa, where I was born and educated. Dionísio Pestana, the present chairman of the Pestana Group, and I both studied economics at university in South Africa where we met and became friends. We stayed in contact after university. Dionísio, who had gone back to Madeira in 1976 to work at the hotel that his father had on the island, invited me to come and join him in 1983. He and I discussed timesharing as a possibility. At the time Southern Suns Hotels, which was a large hotel chain in South Africa, was converting some of their hotels across to timesharing and we looked at that and thought that it was something we could build on the island of Madeira. We did our research and saw that Madeira had a lot of repeat guests and a good all-year-round season with no real high and low periods. Madeira was characterized by mainly 4- and 5-star hotels appealing to slightly more elderly profile of customer who tended to be in their 50s or semi-retired so they tended to have more leisure time than young couples with children. We felt those all added up to making a very good timeshare market and that’s what gave us the confidence to go ahead. We started off with 50 units as part of the 5-star hotel, which at the time was a Sheraton.

And that was the first timeshare in Madeira?
Nobody was doing timeshare in Madeira at that stage. In Portugal it was only ourselves and one other developer on the mainland at that time. But we were the pioneers of the mixed-use hotel-timeshare concept in Europe in those early years.

In contrast to the U.S., where the market essentially started with distressed hotel properties.

It’s been interesting, because at that stage in 1985, Pestana the group just had this one hotel and people forget that in those years – ’84, ’85 – interest rates in Portugal were like 26%, 27%. So timesharing in those years gave us the ability to be able to be less dependent on the banks and expand our operation, our hotel business, and makes some great acquisitions at a time when the cost of money was prohibitive.

So the timeshare division helped fuel Pestana Group’s overall growth?
Absolutely. In a period of 25 years we’ve gone from the one hotel to 88 today. The timesharing has fueled and been the catalyst for a lot of our growth.

Do you construct all your properties as mixed use?
We launched Madeira Beach Club in 1985 and haven’t deviated from that concept, we feel it makes sense for both ourselves and for our customers. We normally sell on a 30-year right to use – Madeira Beach Club is a good example; it’s now got a 25-year track record, we’ve got another five years to run on its lease and then we’ll refurbish it and re-market and sell it in three to four years’ time. We also give an option of a 15-year on some resorts.

The Pestana Promenade in Madeira, Portugal

But having said that, in Brazil we do have a vacation club that is a points-based club.

Because there we had a different concept – it’s more hotel accommodation that people are buying into because we didn’t build any purpose-built accommodation, we took an allotment of rooms from the 10 hotels we have in South America and we put that into a points club. We identified a different need for the Brazil market and developed a product that has been very successful there. To date we have 6,500 owners in Brazil, and we are doing more and more exchanges between Portugal and Brazil.

Tell me more about customer service at Pestana.
I’ve always believed wholeheartedly that if we were going to be around for the long term, it all depended on us giving a level of service that really exceeded the expectations of our owners. We honestly believe that our timeshare owners have to be treated as our VIP guests – because they are loyal customers, they come back and visit us each year. When they come back, they know what to expect from our service levels. We keep track of all our owners’ particular needs and requirements.

We have never been taken to court over a dispute with an owner. We’ve always been able to successfully manage the rare serious customer issue. And at the end of the day, if somebody wants out we’d rather give them their money back and bring in someone new who’s going to be an active Pestana owner and use the product, and recommend it to their friends and family.

What are the challenges for the business?
There’s the resale issue. We have our own resale program – we feel that we should take on that responsibility as a developer that’s been selling for the past 25 years. There are going to be people who for one reason or another need to sell their week. In our case, when you think of our age profile, many of our owners in 1985 maybe averaged 55 years of age. That person’s 80 years old today! We need to understand that maybe their needs have changed.

About 10% of the sales we do are resales, even if it’s less lucrative for us than selling our developer inventory. About 10 or 15 years ago, that wasn’t so much of a factor. But I’m comfortable with having our own resales department and that we do a fair amount of volume with it. At some point, we may need to look at increasing the number of resales we do as a company.

What is proving quite tough is to bring new talent into our business. That’s something we really have to work on because what tends to happen is the same people move from resort to resort, so as an industry we need to find ways to attract new talent because so much of our success depends on recruiting the right caliber of people and getting them trained to do the job.

Where else do you expect to open resorts in the future?
We’ve concentrated we’re we’ve got hotels, which tends to be resort locations. That would be Madeira, the Algarve and South America. Those are the three main destinations where we’ve really concentrated and I don’t think that’s likely to change in the foreseeable future.

What about South Africa?
We have a resort near Krueger Park and we have three resorts in Mozambique, but for the moment we haven’t entertained the timesharing option there – I’m not sure whether that might change in the future, but for the moment, they work very well as hotel properties.

You don’t add phases to your existing resorts?
No, because land here in Madeira is very limited and it’s very restricted. In Madeira it’s difficult to do that. We’re at our sixth resort Madeira, and the interesting thing about that is that in five years’ time we get back the original resort, Madeira Beach Club, with 150 units, when the lease expires. So we will go back and start selling that for the second time. The beauty of that is that you can go back to your old database – at Madeira Beach Club we have about 7,000 owners – so we’ll send a letter to them and market it to them to see whether they would feel inclined towards extending their lease, either for another 15 or 30 years. That’s quite a nice position. So hopefully that we’ll take some of our existing owners and with a very low marketing cost be able to get them to extend their lease with us.

You’ve seen a lot over the years obviously. What are your thoughts on the upcoming Timeshare Directive?
It has its good side and its less-good side. The good side is that it does make it more difficult for people with less-ethical interests to come into this business and it’s going to make it much more difficult for these holiday pack clubs to be able to operate. The less-fortunate side is it’s very hard for a new player to come into this business because the laws make it very difficult – to come in with the cost of getting into this business today by trying to build an owner base from scratch is very difficult. So there’s good and not so good. It would be healthy if we had new entrants coming into this business, but I can see that that’s not easy. Unless you’re a hotel group, because you need to have access to some fairly cost-efficient lead-generation programs. If we didn’t have our owner base to fall back on with our sales, it would be very difficult to justify the costs that you have to pay for bringing in first-time buyers and getting them to join up.

Peter, thank you for taking the time to speak with me. Before we finish up, is there anything else you like to say?

If you’ve been in the business a while and have taken care of your owner base as we have, it’s a great business, and it’s great to see these owners that come back year after year and write in the comment sheet how much they’ve enjoyed it and that they’ve had a great time. It gives me great satisfaction that after all this time owners have had 25 years of great vacations with Pestana.

Manzano Golf Resort Part of a Trend of Attracting Oenophiles to Fractional Ownership

An interesting trend is brewing these days, linking the wine industry and the real estate trade in marvelous ways.

This movement affords prospective investors the venture of a lifetime: fractional vineyard ownership – and it’s proving quite the opportunity for those seeking an investment prospect that is distinctive from the traditional vacation retreat acquisition. For the wine aficionado who leaps at the chance for vineyard exploration at every turn, there could be no greater appeal than that of a vacation haven amidst the vines.

Due to the increase in vineyard tourism, luxury developments on vineyard estates are emerging the world over, and the opportunity for further expansion is vast, especially as wine consumption grows each year. While fractional interest residences, in general, have been on the rise as a result of the downed economy, owning the piece of the vineyard pie is proving rather enticing to fine wine enthusiasts. Indeed, there could be no better way for a wine devotee to relish a respite from the stresses of everyday life than in a well-appointed locale offering all the charming accouterments of an operational winery, along with those benefits commonly found in highend developments, such as swimming pools, exercise rooms and the like.

Manzano Golf Resort, in Tuscany, offers a similar opportunity. Although villa owners aren’t technically acquiring a fraction of a vineyard, top-tier owners at the resort will receive 250 bottles a year of fine wine from the nearby Tenimenti d’Alessandro vineyard, which produces some of the finest Syrah wines in the world. Indeed, there’s no better way to unwind from the pressures of everyday life than in your very own luxury vacation home, glass in hand, as you marvel at picturesque views of the surrounding Tuscan countryside.

Aside from the obvious benefits of a luxury home on or in agreement with a vineyard estate, fractional vineyard ownership proves highly favorable to the wine enthusiast, providing a level of access which the general consumer cannot experience through vineyard tourism alone. The owner partakes in a share of the harvest – able to enjoy an allocation of the wines produced at the vineyard – and, at the same time, expands brand recognition of the label. Moreover, the estate becomes one in which like-minded individuals with
similar objectives share in the experience.

It’s a win-win situation, and one which begs appreciation by all those involved.

Owning a second home with fractional vineyard ownership home confers the advantages of an exclusive resort vacation, replete with the benefits of all that a working vineyard has to offer. For the oenophile, a more perfect union could not be envisioned.

South African Group Touts Successes, Including a Portfolio Valued More than R5.1 Billion

Club Leisure Group, a leader in vacation ownership, points and fractional sales, resort management and administration in South Africa, recently held its Annual Group Recognition Awards at the International Convention Centre in Durban, South Africa. More than 1,000 of their top achievers, back-office staff and other invited guests attended. The evening was a massive success, highlighting and confirming the successes experienced by Club Leisure Group’s sales and service delivery over the past year and hinting at even greater achievements to come.

Victory!!

Club Leisure Group is the largest leisure management vacation ownership organization in Southern Africa, with its head office in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and a network of offices worldwide, including London (UK), Brussels (Europe), Bulawayo and Harare (Zimbabwe), Grand Baie (Mauritius), Gold Coast (Australia) and Mbabane (Swaziland), as well as over 40 marketing outlets throughout Southern Africa.

Personnel are employed worldwide, and the various points clubs affiliated to or managed by the group own the majority of and have access to over 150 resorts in Southern Africa. Currently, the group’s property portfolio equals in excess of R5.1 billion. Reciprocity agreements with all the major exchange groups worldwide enable Club Leisure Group to continuously enhance and expand the destination options available to its members.

Reservations are conducted in several languages and all member requests to any continent anywhere in the world are handled directly by Club Leisure Group’s multilingual central reservations department.

L to R - Shaun Lamont, Tony Ridl, Stuart Lamont and Manny Testa congratulate one of the top sales achievers

The Group services the needs of 17 destination clubs, including the prestigious Golf Resorts Club, and the foremost being Flexiclub. Clubs have also been designed to cater exclusively to the needs of members of the National Defence Force and the South African Police Service.

The group’s philosophy is “Superior in All that We Do” – which goes from initial membership enrollment and sales, to worldwide reservations and related hospitality services.

With a policy of “Quality Always,” without exception, Club Leisure Group continues to acquire holiday and business properties around the world to closely match the Group’s accommodation needs.

L to R - Manny Testa, Shaun Lamont and Tony Ridl with the top sales consultant for 2009.

Noteworthy Remarks
In his speech to the awards gala attendees, Stuart Lamont, executive chairman, Club Leisure Group, detailed many amazing facts about South Africa’s progress, its production and its economy.

Lamont noted that the World Bank reports that South Africa has the 27th biggest economy in the world, with a gross domestic product of US$254 billion. In fact, South Africa accounts for almost 25% of the gross domestic product for the entire African continent, with an economy more than double the size of the second biggest contributor – Algeria.

Furthermore, the JSE Securities exchange is the 14th largest equities exchange in the world with a market capitalization of R2.3 trillion. South Africa has over 55,000 high-net-wealth individuals, each holding more than US$1million or R8 million financial assets. Financial gain is not limited to the wealthy, though. Between 2001 and 2004 there were 300,000 new black entrants to the South African middle class. This trend continued, increasing by 30% in 2005, and with current estimates indicating that these figures exceed 2,000,000.

There are many impressive facts regarding size and scale in South Africa. For instance:
• The country generates two-thirds of Africa’s electricity.
• The Chris Hani – Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto is the largest hospital in the world.
• Durban is the largest port in Africa and the 9th largest in the world.
• There are 39 million cell phone users in South Africa.
• Since 1994, 500 houses have been built every day for the poor and 1,000 houses per day are wired to receive electricity.
• South Africa has the world’s largest deposits of gold, chromium, platinum and manganese.
• South African Breweries is the 2nd largest brewing company in the world, supplying China with 50% of its beer annually.

Regarding tourism, in 2002 South Africa was the world’s fastest growing tourist destination.

What’s more, the number of tourists visiting South Africa has grown by a whopping 200% since 1994, from 3 million to more than 9 million in 2007 – that’s three times the global average.

And, lest we forget, South Africa is the first country in Africa, ever, to be chosen to host the FIFA Football World Cup, which promises to do even more for tourism and the shared-ownership industry.

“The CLG Annual Awards was very professionally coordinated and well received by all in attendance. It was uplifting to see such a large number of staff members recognized for their contributions to the industry and I am convinced that this magnanimous gesture by the management of Club Leisure Group can only enhance the culture of service excellence which is so vital to the vacation industry.” —Assistant Commissioner Danny Pillay, CEO, Offbeat Holiday Club

“This was the first Club Leisure Annual Awards that I have ever attended. From entering the venue to the dinner and presentations, I was very impressed. The vibe was awesome and the ‘carnival’ atmosphere most fitting. How inspiring to see the enthusiasm, positive outlook and ‘can do’ attitude which seems to permeate and uplift this ever-growing industry.” —Neetesh Vanmari, relationship executive, ABSA Corporate and Business Bank (a subsidiary of Barclays Bank)

Stuart Lamont

Stuart Lamont – Executive Chairman, Club Leisure Group
Pretoria-born Stuart Lamont, a leading property developer from Kwa-Zulu-Natal’s South Coast, joined Club Leisure Group in 1994. With the support of a handpicked, common-vision management team, the Group has successfully progressed to develop a portfolio of leisure and business accommodation clubs with inventory in over 150 resorts, as well as a number of service companies to provide the full spectrum of services to members and partners.

Today Club Leisure Group serves more than 200,000 members throughout South Africa, the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia, and employs over 2,500 trained personnel.

Hotel-Stays Program Works as an Incentive or Reward for Customers or Employees

The Connex Marketing Group, which has been providing incentive programs for the past 23 years, offers pan-European leadgeneration and sales-incentive programs that can be tailored to the needs of individual resort developers, regardless of how many or few countries they have operations in.

Connex provides a hotel product that provides free accommodation in 1,500 quality hotels (mostly 3- and 4-star establishments) throughout Europe. Resorts can offer a membership of any length for their owners as a sales package benefit or first-day closing tool, provide individual certificates for one-stays as a tour gift, or use either the membership or one-off certificate as part of an exit program. The hotel stays are the perfect add-on for two key reasons:

• Program inventory available for short breaks throughout Europe is plentiful, even in areas traditionally known for having extremely limited exchange activity
• Program inventory is at hotels rather than timeshares, so that you’re not providing leads to your competition.

Participating developers receive a customized website carrying their own branding that is accessible in eight main European languages. The multilingual approach is essential for today’s European resort developers. Connex has the experience and ability to serve whatever regions your resort(s) market to – and may even help you expand to other European markets.

What’s more, the hotel certificates are perfect for use as sales incentives, employee appreciation gifts or customer-referral rewards.

Barbara Laws

“The Connex Marketing Program focuses on the three key areas of sales promotion, customer loyalty and employee motivation. Connex products have proven themselves over more than 22 years, particularly in conjunction with sales and appointment setting incentives in the new customer acquisition process, but also as valuable enhancement of existing programs,” says Barbara Laws, managing director of Connex UK & Ireland. “We offer incredibly effective solutions to suit every budget.”

Laws also emphasizes the extraordinary cost-effectiveness: “Our unique sales promotion programs cost a fraction of their real value and the developer/marketer offering them incurs no costs at all.”

Connex partners include major shared-ownership resort operators throughout Europe, with expansion into the Far East and Australia planned:
• Holiday Club Hungary
• Seasons Holidays
• Petchey Leisure
• Ambassador Club at Amadores
• Regency Resorts
• Absolute Vacation Club
• Resort Properties

“We were really impressed with the Connex hotel booking plan, which forms a critical part of one of our premium upgrade products,” says Leslie McCann, group marketing director for Seasons Holidays. “We have seen so many different bolt-ons over the years in our industry; it is refreshing to find a product to see that many of our clients find easy to use and appreciate.”

Additional to these incentive products, a range of other programs are available, with prices to suit every budget. Numerous current projects demonstrate the ongoing effectiveness of these programs, including highly cost-effective sales promotion tools for wide-ranging promotions. Custom-made programs for targeted implementation through developers and sales and marketing companies can also be designed in no time.

Privacy of client information and exclusivity of Connex Marketing Group’s products also are core elements of the company’s business model. “It is essential that our business partners know that Connex only operates on a B2B basis and as a result will never contact their database. All programs are only available through the selected group of Connex business partners and cannot be purchased by the client directly,” explains Laws.

Multiple Resort Solutions
The range of use of the Connex Marketing Group’s services and products is just as wide as the sales and marketing goals of their customers are manifold.

Customers
Sales enhancement
Promotions
Product enrichment
Customer loyalty
Complaint management
Cancellation avoidance
Internet communication

Employees
Rewards, anniversaries
Christmas

Sales Partners
Address collection
Recommendation schemes
Appointment setting
Sales promotions
Enhanced customer services
Cross selling
Sales contests

Public
Opinion formation
Image campaigns

For more information, contact Barbara Laws or Louise Knott on +44 (1428) 749 569 or by e-mailing officeuk@connexgroup.net.

In 2001, Intrawest introduced the Resort to Resort program, an exclusive exchange network for whole ownership and the emerging fractional and condo-hotel markets.

The program was well received by participating homeowners from the Intrawest resorts, which include some of the most well-known resort destinations in North America, and in 2003, recognizing the scalability of the model Intrawest took the opportunity to expand Resort to Resort to include a portfolio of carefully selected partner resorts. What was once a small project for Intrawest has seen continued growth in membership and partnerships with further opportunities on R2R’s horizon.

Dean Kneider, director of Resort to Resort, has overseen the company’s expansion in both the number of R2R properties from 47 resorts to over 200, as well as more than 14,000 extended memberships. The program’s growth isn’t slowing down as over the past few months Kneider and his business development
team have solidified partnerships with an additional eight properties including:

• Taheima Wellness Resort & Spa, Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico
• DayStar Properties, Jaco Beach, Costa Rica
• VIVO Resorts, Puerto Escondido, Mexico
• Palmetto Bay, Maya Beach, Belize
• Cape Codder Residences, Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA
• 901 Fernie, Fernie, British Columbia, Canada
• Mayne Island Resort, Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada
• Rundle Cliffs at Spring Creek Mountain Village, Canmore, Alberta, Canada

“We are thrilled to have so many diverse and exclusive properties join our network,” says Kneider. “As resort real estate continues to grow and value-added partnerships like these are offered, resort home owners get an opportunity to expand their vacation possibilities.”

Having an established a portfolio of attractive properties throughout North America means R2R can focus more on the Caribbean, Mexico and South America. Expansion isn’t restricted to this hemisphere alone as the company looks at expansion opportunities in Europe as well. As the growth of fractional, whole ownership and condo-hotel resort offerings expand, they dovetail with R2R’s business model perfectly.
When outside developers are calling to be affiliated with R2R, it’s clear that they have a successful business
that is continuing to grow.

North America has been a pioneer in the field of fractional, whole ownership, condo-hotels, destination clubs and private residence clubs, and over the past few years there has been real growth in this sector. According to an article in the February 23, 2004 issue of Insurance Journal, “The economic boom of the 1990s created an unprecedented amount of personal wealth in America – currently estimated at more than $33 trillion … an estimated $40.6 trillion will change hands as Baby Boomers and their parents pass on their accumulated assets to their heirs.”

The aging of the North American baby boomer population will create an increase in demand for leisure travel, real estate ownership and unique lifestyle experiences.

The need for an exclusive exchange program outside the timeshare world emerged from resort owners’ desire for reciprocal trade and the guarantee that the other destination would be of like quality and finish.
Intrawest created Resort to Resort to accommodate this exclusive group of whole, fractional and condo hotel owners that have invested anywhere from $100,000 for a fractional home to well over $2 million
for a home in whole ownership.

In yesterday’s comparatively low interest rate and real estate frenzied market, projects would often be sold quickly prior to starting construction. Projects were being pitched as investment tools to real estate speculators that had little interest in ever visiting the resort.

Those times have changed and we are seeing more user buyers purchasing resort homes as a lifestyle choice. This buyer that plans on frequently visiting their resort home finds tremendous value in added services and amenities. Resort to Resort offers these owners greater flexibility and choice of vacation possibilities beyond their own home.

Resort homeowners are looking for ways to maximize their return on investment. As an owner there are only
a few things to do with your resort home: use it and get 100% of its value; let it sit empty and receive no value; let friends or family use it and recoup some value; rent it and split the proceeds with a property manager, or exchange it and get full value for the time deposited. The greatest return on investment is found in using the home or exchanging it for a home of like quality in another much sought-after destination.

The greater the amount of flexibility and choice that a developer can offer, the more the resort will appeal to a larger target market of buyers in the sales and marketing phase. The happier those owners are will greatly impact their desire to include their like-minded friends in the project.

Property management companies need not fear that their rental program will be replaced by an exchange
company. The average resort home owner takes three, four or even five weeks of vacation annually and looks to only deposit one to two weeks annually or bi-annually. Those deposited weeks represent the time that the owners would have spent in their own unit had they not chosen to travel elsewhere – and therefore doesn’t diminish rental inventory levels.

How R2R Works – Delivering Opportunities to Members
The most compelling thing about Resort to Resort is how it works and the opportunities it delivers. With the
purchase a resort home in a R2R-affiliated property, you purchase more than just a home. As a Resort to Resort member, you gain access to an expanding network of vacation opportunities in sought-after ski, golf and beach resorts, as well as cruise vacations.

The Resort to Resort system is beautiful in its simplicity and ease of use – it is designed around credits. When you’re not using your resort home you simply deposit the use of the resort home with R2R. This deposit means you are putting your resort home into the R2R pool and you will receive resort credits. These credits are based on the size and location of your property, along with time of year and length of stay, and have a lifespan of 2 years. To take advantage of the accumulated credits, R2R members choose a vacation destination or cruise itinerary they wish to enjoy from the extensive R2R portfolio of vacation options and make a reservation request. Once R2R has received the reservation request, their dedicated team of exchange consultants will work to search for and confirm your vacation.

A point of pride for Resort to Resort is putting their members’ needs first. As a member of Resort to Resort,
their priority is to ensure you receive first class service and they do all they can to fulfill your vacation requests.

A Strong Network
Resort to Resort is powered by Intrawest, a world leader in the development and operation of experiential
destination resorts. The Intrawest resort network ranges from the tops of towering mountains to  championship golf courses and pristine beaches around the world.

Founded in 1976, Intrawest began as a residential and urban real estate firm. In the mid-1980s, Intrawest
developed a unique marriage of mountain resorts and real estate expertise. Today, Intrawest has interests in
11 resorts at North America’s most popular mountain destinations, including Whistler/Blackcomb, a host venue for the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The Intrawest network also includes Canadian Mountain Holidays, the largest heli skiing operation in the world, Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort in Florida and Club Intrawest – a private resort club with locations
throughout Canada, the United States and Mexico.

Have a look at the growing world of R2R: www.resort2resort.com.

Review of the 2010 Fractional Summit, 18-19 February, London
“Changing Times, Changing Markets”

It was almost standing room only at last month’s two-day 2010 Fractional Summit in London as speakers and guests converged at the Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, to predict future trends and debate about the state of one of property’s most interesting ownership models – fractionals.

The man behind the sold out event is Piers Brown, Founder of Fractional Life, who foresees an additional 10,000 fractional units coming on to the European market this year alone. He believes companies need to react fast to changes in current market dynamics and consumer buying habits, hence the aptly-headlined conference, “Changing Times, Changing Markets.”

Piers Brown

It was Fractional Life’s www.fractionallife.com third summit. Interest in fractionals has surged – as Fractionallife.com’s online research shows – so the burning question during the lively series of panel discussions and Q&As was, what does the future hold?

By the end of the Summit there were more questions than answers, and a number of important points emerged. Europe’s fractional market is no longer a baby, it’s more of a healthy, fast-growing toddler with teething problems, so the event provided a unique opportunity to raise issues such as financing, consumer enlightenment, media awareness and the dangers of over-pricing. It’s a growing industry, temporarily slowed by the “R” word, but consumer interest is thriving.

The fractional model has tested well in the States, with great success, so why shouldn’t properties at all price points sell well in Europe and further afield? How will the land lie in 5 years time? European fractionals are not yet a household name, it’s still early days, but nobody in the room could deny it’s an exciting time to be a part of this industry.

Many fractionals are bought without mortgages; nevertheless, financing is a must for developers and consumers if the concept is to take off at a mass market level. Even if this type of niche funding is now on some banks’ radars, most would appear reluctant to lend without substantial industry research, so one of the notes on Piers Brown’s busy agenda was to encourage members of the banking community to attend next year.

There were plenty of highlights: one was the presentation by Valerie McDermott, Membership Executive at 47 Park Street – Grand Residences by Marriott, who treated the audience to an excellent “how to sell exclusive properties to high net worth buyers” insiders guide – she once sold a fractional in just forty minutes.

Renowned American expert Dr. Richard Ragatz offered invaluable insight into the American market. He explained how Europe can learn from the States’ success and presented his Fractional 101 model which outlined the pros and cons for both developers and consumers.

Panelist Robin Barrasford, MD of Barrasford & Bird Worldwide, develops luxury resorts in 13 countries, including some of the most scenic locations on the map, including the Caribbean, Cornwall and the Greek island of Samos. He explained, “For our clients, a fractional is an investment and lifestyle purchase, they want to see the investment potential as well.” Barrasford will be concentrating on the UK market in 2010, after his company’s luxury barn conversions in Cornwall were snapped up by ex-pats who live abroad but wanted somewhere that felt like home for their UK visits. Barrasford agrees that finance is an issue, so to facilitate the purchase process he has launched a loan financing package. His company has even been upselling fractionals into whole ownership homes to a number of buyers who were convinced by the fractional model and quality of resorts, who then developed an appetite for a larger piece of paradise.

Fractional Life Award Winners

Bryan Lunt, Chairman of the Absolute World Group of Companies, has been upselling timeshare into fractionals with notable success; it’s a natural graduation because timeshare owners are quick to appreciate the benefits of buying a fractional. (Forest Hills resort near Marbella, owned by another developer Seasons Holidays, has just become the first European fractional resort to sell out; many units were bought by the company’s timeshare members.) Lunt is focusing on resort developments in Asia such as the stylish designer lifestyle yooPhuket Thailand resort, co-owned by Philippe Stark and John Hitchcox and developed by
Absolute which scooped this year’s Fractional Life 2010 Readers Award.

As the Summit proved, fractionals work at all levels. Fabrizio Harper, Head of Sales at Fractionallife.com mentioned a development that was selling shares for just under £7,000 – they sold fast. Low to mid market fractionals are popular in holiday spots like Turkey, Cyprus and Portugal while high end fractionals, those sleek penthouses in Paris and dreamy castles in Chianti country, are often part of a luxury lifestyle line-up also starring jets, yachts and vineyards. Whatever their budget, today’s buyers are risk-averse, so developers and agents must take steps to ensure the buyer understands what’s being bought, to offer a quality product in a good location, to manage it well and price it fairly.

In “Mid Market Fractionals – Where Are The Buyers?” Fabrizio Harper reinforced the potential of fractionals at all levels: “There’s a new generation of consumers hungry for this product and as we open up the market to more price points, we’ll see more people coming into fractionals.”

Paul Owen, Chief Executive of the Association of International Property Professionals, reminded us of “the myth of the great idea” from Felix Dennis’s bestseller, How To Grow Rich. It’s great to have a great idea…but it’s nothing if it’s not well implemented. As discussions turned to fractional resales, Peter Kempf, President and CEO of Peter Kempf International stressed that anyone reselling fractionals must be able to “explain how fractionals work, succinctly and eloquently,” and added that many fractional buyers told him it was “the best money they ever spent”.

The question of clarifying and defining fractional ownership kept surfacing. Lawyer Andy Sirkin, whose Paris and San Franciscobased law firm has handled over 5,000 fractional real estate transations since 1985, touched on the definition of the various models on the market. The most popular definition is the quarter to twelfth equity share of a holiday home, but non-equity, deeded and non-deeded contracts are also part of the fractional world.

Of course while we hypothesised over the future of European fractionals on a cold, rainy day in Mayfair (at our American-owned Marriott across from the American Embassy) there were plenty of Americans enjoying their ski in, ski out chalets in Aspen or doing a few laps in their Florida holiday home pools – thanks, in main, to The Registry Collection, winner of Fractional Life’s Services To The Industry Award 2010. It’s the world’s largest luxury exchange programme, with over 130 affiliates on five continents, more than 35,000 members and 160 world-class properties in its impressive portfolio.

Nick Turner, The Registry Collection’s VP and Head of New Business Development, Europe, commented on how mainstream media is picking up the fractional story, demonstrated by half page coverage on the front page of the FT’s “House and Home” supplement. But it won’t just be the British who’ll be buying. He believes buyer demographics are changing: “The majority of fractional buyers over the next few years are going to come from Europe, including Russia and Eastern Europe, and to a lesser extent from the Middle East.”

The internet’s pivotal role in sales and branding was reflected in two New Media Sessions. After a video presentation by James Bacon, UK Account Manager at Google Property, the panel debated “Is web search optimisation dead?” The definitive answer was no, but a good web strategy must include social media – Twitter and Facebook, et al – to compete in today’s property market.

So, the future? Champagne corks will pop when the big five-star hotel brands like the Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons join the fractional party in Europe. Having those big names on board will lend valuable weight and credibility to the industry. Meanwhile, “boutique” property agents will continue to successfully sell boutique developments (as specialists they understand how to sell the fractional model) and although the big boys may be watching they’re not yet participating, perhaps, except for Winkworths. Exeterbased Director Simon Scott-Nelson who was on the Meet The Agents panel explained why his Winkworths office is now selling unique waterfront fractional residences to its affluent clientele.

During the Ultimate Q&A on the final day, a number of delegates asked what was being done to create awareness of the industry in Europe, and to secure consumer finance for the product. Guest speaker Paul Gardner-Bougaard, Chief Executive of FSOTA (Fractional and Shared Ownership Trade Association) www.fsota.org strongly encouraged developers to join the industry’s only official trade association. Only then, under a united front, with FSOTA’s ability to lobby, and the support of its parent company the Resort Development Organisation (RDO), will the fractional industry be able to address issues as important as financing, regulation and consumer and media awareness – all nothing short of crucial to the future of an
industry that could experience unprecedented development in the next five to ten years, all being well.

Likewise, consumers, now in a position to buy an affordable segment of the holiday home they always wanted, will be able to have their cake and eat it…preferably with a Grappa on the terrace of their Tuscan townhouse, their piece of a place in the sun.

It’s not too uncommon for consumers and even timeshare developers to assume that all timeshare resale companies are pretty much the same. But in today’s economic environment, it pays to know that they’re definitely not.

Timeshares Only has created the world’s largest timeshare resale marketplace. Through cooperative advertising, Timeshares Only makes it possible for timeshare buyers, sellers and renters to connect around the world.

But there’s another level on which Timeshares Only differs as well; unlike many of its so-called competitors,
Timeshares Only is more than merely a web presence. The company’s 30,000 square-foot timeshare resale
headquarters in Orlando, Florida, which is staffed with more than 100 timeshare professionals, shows that
Timeshares Only is in the business for the long haul.

Timeshares Only works together with Vacations Only, its rental partner, and Fidelity Real Estate Agency |
Timeshare Division, the company’s official broker, to present a seamless total package that works
efficiently and effectively for both the consumer and the developer client.

Cleaned and Pressed
One main area in which Timeshares Only is different is in their attention to small but critical details in the sales process. “We go the extra mile, we clean and press the inventory,” says Michael Paduano, director of
business development for Timeshares Only. “We do our due diligence when it comes to verifying ownership properly.”

So what do they mean by “cleaned and pressed”? Oftentimes, an owner doesn’t understand exactly what
he or she has purchased, says Paduano: “Let’s say they own week 47, a two-bedroom, two-bath at resort
XYZ. They actually own a floating week; they were deeded week 47, but every year they have to call up
and request the week that they want – so they really don’t know what they own. Maybe it’s a gold week, or
it could be a platinum week, or it could be a pink week.

There could be points associated with it – they have no idea. And if there’s banked points, then they think
those banked points are a part of the package itself, but they’re not, because they’ve already banked those
points with Interval or RCI.”

“So what we do,” says Paduano “is get the deeds or their membership documents, and we make sure that the information they want to post in our ad is correct.”

“We’re not just selling what they tell us they own, we’re going in and making sure it’s what they own,” Paduano adds, “because when they go to sell it, we want to ensure that there are no problems.”

Timeshares Only’s large headquarters serves another function, as all the pertinent paperwork is kept onsite
and easily accessible for review at any time during the sales process. “It makes the transactions a whole lot
quicker,” explains Paduano.

Relationship with Developers
While the third-party resale market was not always embraced by timeshare developers, Paduano says things are different today, at least with Timeshares Only: “Historically, our brokerage, Fidelity Real Estate Agency, has been the only recommended resale company for Disney Vacation Club, and we’ve had an affiliation with them for almost six years now. In fact, we also have a relationship with several branded and independent top-name resort developers, as well as exchange and other industry-related companies, as their only recommended resale company.”

“I have been working with Timeshares Only for over 10 years now,” says Seth Nock, founder and president
of Selling Timeshares, Inc. (www.sellingtimeshares.net), a niche timeshare resale company specializing
in Marriott, Hilton and Disney. “I can count on them to assist me with inventory for my buyers if I do not
have that inventory in my network. Timeshares Only is easy to work with, which is a great benefit to all parties involved. They are a tremendous asset to the industry and always put their clients’ needs first.”

Timeshares Only believes that developers and other timeshare operators want to see a strong, solid system
in place for handling their inventory. If all the proverbial ducks are in a row, developers can easily see that
Timeshares Only is going to be able to move inventory given to them because they are not going to be hung
up on back-office issues.

“The committed approach to the industry of Timeshares Only results in exceptional opportunities for their customers,” says Cathy Backus, worldwide director, vacation ownership, with CSA Travel Protection. “They instill trust and confidence in every buyer and renter by successfully providing products that offer vacation security. Their professional and skilled employees create an exceptional business to business relationship, which CSA has enjoyed for over three years.”

Advertising Makes Timeshares Only Different
Another difference between Timeshares Only and virtually all other resale companies is Timeshares Only’s
commitment to advertising. The company advertises on more than 500 television stations, including The
Travel Channel, ESPN, The History Channel, TLC and many others.

What’s more, Timeshares Only short- and long-term marketing focus includes:

• Radio advertising to more than 40,000,000 potential radio listeners on over 1,600 radio stations nationwide
• Advertisements on hundreds of billboards at more than 550 locations nationwide
• Print ads in a variety of publications, with more than 10,000,000 pieces mailed
• The highly visible headquarters location in the heart of the timeshare capital of the world encourages walk-in traffic. Illuminated by brightly lit signs and a 5 foot by 10 foot electronic message board, Timeshares Only is hard to miss.

Timeshares Only has created a proprietary media exchange using best-in-class systems and research technology that serves as the backbone for their direct mail programs. Their direct mail campaigns are finely
tuned and enhanced to leverage their technology and information systems to the benefit of their customers.

Up-Front Fees
Another common misperception about resale companies is the practice of collecting up-front fees. Florida statutes make it illegal for a real estate licensee to accept money up front for the listing of a timeshare. Timeshares Only is not a broker and does not take listings – only advertisements. The up-front fees they
collect are legitimately used for advertising and are 100% above board.

“We do collect advertising fees,” Paduano says. “When someone wants to sell with us, we charge them an
advertising fee. There are a lot of Internet marketing companies that are nothing more than websites – we
are a multimedia solution for the resale market. We actually go out and advertise on television, radio, billboards, print, and obviously do pay-per-click campaigns on the Internet. We take almost 50% of every advertising dollar that comes in and reinvest it into our advertising network so that we can attract buyers for their timeshare. There are a lot of people who say to never pay an up-front fee, but you have to keep in mind
that not all upfront fees are equal.”

The professionals at Timeshares Only fully realize that the timeshare resale industry has long been plagued with organizations that are “here today, gone tomorrow,” and that often these companies would ask for thousands of dollars up front and then disappear without a trace. To make consumers aware, help eradicate such operators and ultimately bolster the credibility of the timeshare industry, the Timeshares Only scam page (www.timesharesonly.com/timesharesonly-scam) details several common methods that scammers use.

“Timeshares Only seeks to bring absolute legitimacy to the timeshare resale industry,” Paduano states. “We are committed to serving the timeshare resale industry for years to come.”

Timeshares Only – Your Resales Solution
11059 International Drive
Orlando, FL 32821
Timeshares Only
Toll-Free: 1-800-946-1692
Worldwide: 407-465-1888
Fax: 407-465-5181
Vacations Only
Toll-Free: 800-421-2205
Fidelity Real Estate Agency | Timeshare Division
Toll-Free: 800-831-2990
Worldwide: 407-477-7987
Fax: 407-477-7988