Gen. Danny Pillay (Director of The Palace Resort and Spa) and Hedley Riddle (Food and Beverage Manager of The Palace Resort and Spa).

The Palace Resort and Spa received the Best Refurbishment Award by VOASA “the vacation industry watchdog” in a ceremony held in June. Situated in a prime location along Durban’s beachfront, the resort is midway through its 5-year R20 million refurbishment programme. Managed by First Resorts, the Palace’s revamp includes extensive renovations to the façade, luxury apartments, restaurants, entertainment areas and Wellness centre.

In 2010 the first phase commenced with the completion of the reception, two restaurants (Pesto and The Bridge), and the Wellness centre. The latest trends have been utilized in the design. As the project rolls out over the next 3 years, the resort will upgrade a total of 76 apartments to the new look, exclusively designed for The Palace by Sphere Design and Architecture, and renowned South African Interior Designer Caron Mitchell,.

The rest of this article is for registered users only.
Login now or Register Free Here for full access to all articles, groups and forums.

The flagship restaurant, Pesto, has given the wider community an opportunity to enjoy The Palace facilities. With a new deck that opens onto Marine Parade, the restaurant creates an up-market, social area for guests to relax and enjoy sundowners. “We want to encourage the public to support the local businesses situated along Durban’s Golden Mile. With the current upgrades to the beachfront, we look forward to, and support the rejuvenation of the tourist industry in the area.” Says Johann Jordaan, Managing Director of First Resorts.

Guests are given an additional dining option, The Bridge, situated on the 5th floor. In a contemporary lounge area, with views of the Indian Ocean, you are invited to sit back and relax around the pool, enjoy a cocktail from the bar and order a light meal. On the same floor is the Wellness centre, equipped with a sauna and spa bath.

Chic new restaurant opens at The Palace Resort and Spa

First Resorts this week hosted Durban’s “Who’s Who” at the launch of Pesto, its stylish new North Beach restaurant located in the recently renovated Palace Resort and Spa.  Pesto is part of the R20 million award-winning Palace hotel refurbishment project, offering a trendy all day restaurant experience.  Dr May Mkhize, the First Lady of KZN, was amongst Durban’s elite to sample the chic cuisine.

“Pesto’s menu, although wide, is a medley of appetizing Mediterranean combinations which have kept the restaurant pretty full since its opening a few weeks ago” says Claudio Tripepi, Food and Beverage Manager for the First Resorts food outlets.

First Resorts manages over 50 resorts throughout Southern Africa and is the largest resort management company in the country. Other restaurants in the group’s portfolio include – amongst others – the Bushpot, at Bushman’s Nek resort in the picturesque Southern Drakensberg, the Martial Eagle Restaurant overlooking the Sterkfontein Dam, and La Montagne’s Crayfish Inn, located in the heart of Ballito.

Interval International, a prominent worldwide provider of vacation services, continues to strengthen its commitment in South Africa, with the opening of its resort sales and service office in Cape Town and its ongoing support of the Vacation Ownership Association of Southern Africa (VOASA).

Interval established a market presence in 2008 through an exclusive affiliation agreement with SunSwop, the Lifestyle Resorts division of leading hotelier, Southern Sun. Since then, the company has added Zorgvliet Private Residence Club and Mjejane Game Reserve (adjacent to Kruger National Park) to its resort network and opened its regional office. Well-known sales and marketing executives, Dirk Wilson and Jackie Bauermeister, were recently appointed to lead business development initiatives and provide services to existing clients.

“Interval International is proving to be a sought-after partner for established resort developers and new entrants throughout South Africa,” said Darren Ettridge, vice president of resort sales and service for Europe, Middle East, and Africa. “After 35 years in the vacation ownership industry, we’ve differentiated ourselves as visionaries and innovators. We know that each client has varying needs, and we customize our services to suit them.”

The rest of this article is for registered users only.
Login now or Register Free Here for full access to all articles, groups and forums.

As a platinum sponsor of this year’s Vacation Ownership Association of Southern Africa (VOASA) conference, Interval International, a prominent worldwide provider of vacation services and an operating business of Interval Leisure Group (Nasdaq: IILG), is committed to the advancement of shared holiday ownership in this region. The 2011 event is being held at the Southern Sun Elangeni Hotel in Durban, South Africa from 29-31 May.

“As a VOASA member and a sponsor of the annual conference since 2009, we fully support the association’s mission to stimulate industry growth and protect consumer rights,” said David Clifton, managing director, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia for Interval International. “With hundreds of shared ownership resorts in Africa and more to come, the industry has proven to benefit consumers, local economies, government and the developers and hospitality companies associated with our sector. Our commitment to Southern Africa is underlined by the opening of our new regional office in Cape Town.”

The rest of this article is for registered users only.
Login now or Register Free Here for full access to all articles, groups and forums.

Francis Taylor, CEO of Dial An Exchange, will examine the current state of the exchange business during Perspective Magazine’s timeshare and fractional ownership industry networking event.

Timeshare and fractional industry multi-media information leader Perspective Magazine announces that Francis Taylor, CEO of Dial An Exchange (DAE), will provide expert analysis of the timeshare exchange marketplace during the Global Networking Expo, GNEX 2011.

DAE is now the largest independent timeshare exchange provider in the world, servicing a global market from offices in the USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, China, Thailand and India. Mr. Taylor has steadfastly modeled the DAE business simply based on keeping its members happy while delivering on its promises. Members can access live availability online 24/7 and can search, hold, book and confirm in real time, making the exchange process simple.

Mr. Taylor’s position atop DAE allows him to see the industry from a unique, global perspective and bring an independent viewpoint to the discussion regarding timeshare exchange and how best to meet the needs of changing consumer behavior.

The rest of this article is for registered users only.
Login now or Register Free Here for full access to all articles, groups and forums.

First Resorts is one of the largest resort management companies in South Africa and, following global travel trends in the hospitality industry, have partnered with Cellu-Beauty, one of the largest chains of luxury spas in the country. With 12 out of the 20 Cellu-Beauty Spa’s situated at First Resort destinations throughout the country, the partnership between these two companies is proving to be a perfect marriage, with enormous added benefits to their guests.

Cellu-Beauty Spa at The Palace resort situated on Durban’s beachfront has undergone a major facelift to keep on trend with the ever-evolving and competitive luxury spa business. The new look brings a golden glow of sophistication to the venue at this wonderful holiday destination. The spa at The Palace, managed by First Resorts, is one of Cellu-Beauty’s flagship treatment centres, offering outstanding service to the guests.

The rest of this article is for registered users only.
Login now or Register Free Here for full access to all articles, groups and forums.

The Hideaways Club, a property investment company specialising in the management of a collection of international luxury property Funds, picked up two prestigious awards in the first two months of 2011. Destination Club News awarded the company Best International Destination Club 2010 for the second year running and Fractional Life presented the company with the Best Destination Club 2010 award.

Commenting on the awards Nick Bettany, CEO of The Hideaways Club said, “Receiving these two awards is a great way to start the year and is a further endorsement of our unique proposals – the Classic and City Collections.  Both our Funds offer a great combination of lifestyle experiences and investment potential. The extremely positive testimonials we have received from our members underlines our belief that membership of The Hideaways Club is the logical way forward to owning international properties.”

The rest of this article is for registered users only.
Login now or Register Free Here for full access to all articles, groups and forums.

GPEA Ltd, the parent company of global estate agency Fine & Country and The Guild of Professional Estate Agents, has formed a joint venture company with property PR specialist P1 Communications Ltd. The new company will provide PR services and media representation to Fine & Country’s global network of 280 UK and international offices, and the Guild’s 600 independent estate agent members in the UK.  P1 Communications’ staff will be based in GPEA’s Park Lane head office in Mayfair, London.

Malcolm Lindley, Managing Director of GPEA says: “The company has expanded rapidly in recent years and we wanted a more dedicated, hands-on team to help us make more of our success, build the brand and develop our networks further. We are delighted to be working with P1 Communications whose international and extensive property experience will be instrumental in promoting our global brand in a professional manner.”

The rest of this article is for registered users only.
Login now or Register Free Here for full access to all articles, groups and forums.

Dial An Exchange (DAE), one of the world’s largest independent timeshare exchange organizations has recently launched a new expansion of benefits for DAE’s Gold Advantage members. Gold Advantage is the premium membership offered by Dial An Exchange, (www.daelive.com) a free membership is also available.

Gold Advantage memberships can be purchased for $89 for a full year, with a renewal price of $59. Current Gold Advantage benefits include advance booking capability of newly available inventory, priority requests, discounts on the purchase of all DAE exchanges and bonus weeks, and a slew of lifestyle benefits that encompass travel, hotel, golf, recreation and even grocery discounts.

The additional features added to the Gold Advantage membership include a 365/24/7 concierge program that members can access both on vacation and at home. Concierge benefits include roadside assistance, currency exchange, medical assistance, and more. Another additional benefit is discounts on vacation, tour, and cruise packages, and an elite member buying service that gives Gold Advantage members discounts on thousands of brand name products from hundreds of manufacturers and distributors.

The rest of this article is for registered users only.
Login now or Register Free Here for full access to all articles, groups and forums.

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.

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.