A List: Geoff Ballotti, President & CEO of Group RCI
April 20, 2009 by Perspective Magazine | Timeshare & Fractional Reviews
An Interview with Geoff Ballotti, President and CEO of Group RCI – On his first year and the future of Group RCI.
Could you tell us about your background in the real estate and travel sectors before joining RCI?
My first job was with Bank of New England in 1983 as a management trainee in their management training department. I went into the real estate lending group there, making development loans around New England and across North America. I got to know some great people at ITT Sheraton who were headquartered in Boston. At about the same time I went back to business school and when I got out I joined Sheraton in their development group. To me, after five years of banking, I thought the hotel industry was a lot more colorful and exciting than banking was—and a lot more fun. I spent the next 20 years with Sheraton, a company that took me all over the world. In the early 1990s, they sent me overseas to work on the acquisition of an Italian luxury hotel group called CIGA, and I got into operations.
I always wanted to be a general manager—I thought that being a GM of a great hotel was the best job in the industry. I still think that. My first GM assignment was as GM of the Sheraton Brussels, a city in which three of my four daughters were born. We then moved back to Italy and I had one of my best jobs ever as Managing Director of CIGA and the Starwood Hotels of southern Europe. In 2002 I was brought back to the U.S. to run the North American division of Starwood hotels and resorts, which I did for six years. I first met Steve Holmes, chairman and CEO of Wyndham Worldwide, in January 2008 when I was approached for this job. Over a series of meetings Steve convinced me what a great company, a great group and a great opportunity running RCI would be.
You started working for Group RCI in April 2008. In your first year, what have been your biggest challenges?
One big challenge for me has been not diving too much into the details—which I’ve always tended to do. I’ve always wanted to figure out everything that is going on. After 20 years in the hotel business, there’s a ton for me to learn. So many aspects of the timeshare exchange and vacation rental businesses are new to me. My challenge has been taking a step back and trying to manage the organizational context, as opposed to managing the details of the operation. Organizationally, another challenge has been making sure we have the right leaders in the right seats. We’re surrounded by incredibly smart folks like Gordon Gurnik our president of North America, Tom Edwards our Chief Financial Officer, Faye Tylee our Global Head of Human Resources, Charisse Cox, our Managing Director of the Pacific… I could go on. Operationally, intellectually and experientially, these people are outstanding. It’s so important that we position the brightest people we can find into key leadership roles, over-communicating our strategy to our associates as to where we are headed and going from there.
After having worked in Europe for a leading hospitality brand for many years, do you think this has given you a wider understanding of the global marketplace and its differences from region to region?
Absolutely. If you think about RCI and how global we are, Europe is absolutely critical for us. Our businesses in Europe are led by two new great talents at RCI: Jonathan Back, who heads our Exchange businesses and Ian Ailles who heads our Rental businesses. In terms of organizational context or managing cultural differences, I think my years in Europe have been very helpful for me in managing issues and opportunities.
Group RCI has also been expanding in areas other than Exchange, such as rental programs, holiday cottages and fractional ownership. Can you tell us more about the strategy behind these additional products and services?
Our rental strategy is about fulfilling our customers’ needs. This includes our ability to rent inventory and provide affiliates and developers with an outlet to rent their product to generate leads for their resorts. In some respects it’s similar to a hotel room: a night not occupied is a night forever lost. So the ability to rent if we cannot fill a unit with the exchange is very important. An example is Endless Vacation Rentals (www.evrentals.com), which is a phenomenal success for us. We’ve registered over 21,000 travel agents and over 29,000 travel agencies. We’ve been very successful on Web deployment. In 2008 alone, we had over
three million unique visits to EVRentals.com. We’ve got a lot of unique features within our Endless Vacation Rentals product. One is the best price guarantee—an assurance that our offerings aren’t available for a lower price anywhere else. We also have no booking fee, complimentary concierge service, and a three-day, 100% refund, giving you a complete refund if your cancellation is made three days in advance of the start-date.
Other features that set us apart from our competitors are Wyndham Rewards Points, which give the customer 5,000 points for every EVR rental and 24-7 check-in assistance.
I think that the most important thing about Endless Vacation Rentals, however, is that our properties are rated by our customers. When our members leave a unit they complete an online survey, and our Web site allows customers to read those reviews. A recent survey showed that after booking through Endless Vacation Rentals, 89% of our customers reported that we either met or exceeded their expectations.
What goals have you set for the next 12 months?
There are three major goals over the next year. The first is our continued investment in technology, our Web sites, and search capabilities. The second is the continued investment in sales and marketing infrastructure, making sure that we’ve got the best sales and marketing opportunities for affiliates and developers. As the economy struggles, our focus will be to continue helping affiliates and developers with lead generation. The third goal is continued growth, by adding quality new affiliates that represent us well and have resorts where our members want to travel. Our recent affiliation with Disney Vacation Club is a great example of this. The Disney Vacation Club management team I believe saw that our management depth, technology resources,
and global marketing infrastructure is in alignment with their strategic growth plan. Now RCI’s more than 3.7 million members will enjoy the opportunity to exchange into Disney Vacation Club resorts.
Are there any new plans or upcoming announcements we don’t yet know about that you could divulge?
In 2009 we will provide increased flexibility for owners to customize their vacation needs by introducing Enhanced Search for Points, much in the same way we developed Enhanced Search for our RCI Weeks members. Again, we are continuing to invest in technology. Our new Enhanced Search feature has given our members the ability to quickly go online and see total availability anywhere in the world. We believe in having the most flexible technology in terms of what you can do with your Points or Weeks. All the research indicates a trend toward shorter vacations. And that’s something powerful. We will continue to stay focused on technology enhancements, providing our members with the most Webfriendly content and functionality available in the exchange industry, while also providing more flexibility and options than anyone else
in the industry.
Can you say a few words about our European rental business/brands?
The European rental business is a collection of great brands that cover an extraordinary range of holiday products; from rural homes, to Italian manor houses, to outdoor parks in Holland, to camping holidays in France and Spain…I could go on. They are united by being self-catered and family-centric in their product offering, giving freedom of independence and space to their travelers. There are other European holiday companies, but none that can offer the range of nationalities: we are proud to market to as many as 17 languages – reaching into every corner of Europe.
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