Author: Staff Contributor

The May issue of Perspective Magazine, carries an excellent article about Orange Lake Timeshares, pointing out that it is a steadily growing resort company despite the economy. This Orlando timeshare is located near Walt Disney World on roughly 2000 scenic acres that include four golf courses (good golf courses!), restaurants, pools, and retail shops.

What is particularly interesting about Orange Lake Country Club timeshare is their financial solidity. Don’t try to tell the management of this successful Orlando timeshare that there’s a recession going on. Not only are they not laying off timeshare employees, but Orange Lake timeshares has been hiring. Since 2004, Orange Lake timeshare’s staff has doubled to 2400 employees. In 2007, Orange Lake experienced a 20 percent increase in sales; in 2008, an additional 20 percent increase. Impressively, sales in the first two months of 2009 have outperformed sales during the same two months of 2008.

This Orlando Timeshare Has the Right Idea

But where does this kind of rock-solid business positioning come from? Here’s how President and CEO Don Harrill explains it, “To date, we’ve not been impacted by the credit freeze. Four years ago, (with) none of us knowing the credit squeeze was going to be at our door; part of the plan at the time was to engage our bankers.”

In a long-term plan that involved extensive due diligence; developing a technology platform; creating the legal structure; recruiting professionals with club experience; and expanding the resort network; Orange Lake Country Club timeshare resort mapped out their plan for growth and acquisition. It was a carefully laid plan with apparently the right balance of conservatism and aggressiveness.

“We laid out the performance metrics in excruciating detail and developed very strong local relationships with SunTrust and Wachovia. Our bankers have been on this journey with us for these four years, and they have seen played out everything we said we were going to do in managing and growing our business,” says Harrill. He adds that their bankers have celebrated with them in their successes and year-over-year increases.

But perhaps one of the most striking statements by Orange Lake Country Club timeshare’s head man is this, “We’re not a huge, billion-dollar company, but we operate in a sweet spot that is financeable by regional bankers.”

In a time when a great deal of public sentiment regarding businesses and corporations in America has shifted from support to suspicion, from respect to resentment, Orange Lake timeshares are sending a timeless business message. They aren’t in trouble now and they haven’t felt the bite of the tight economy simply because they didn’t try to overgrow their business or their market. They did the research and then carefully moved forward—basic business fundamentals that too many companies seem to have forgotten.

Congratulations Orange Lake timeshares on your growth and success! You represent the timeshare industry proudly and serve as a great example of what good business is really supposed to mean in this country.

We’ve looked at only a tiny part of Orange Lake timeshare’s impressive story, including their new branding alliance with Holiday Inn Hotels & Resorts, which we have discussed several times this past year, here on The Timeshare Authority.

Recent The Timeshare Authority blog posts about Orange Lake Country Club.

• Timeshare Resales and Timeshare Rentals that Make the 2009 HOT 100 List
• Orange Lake Timeshare’s Alliance with Holiday Inn Timeshares is Good for the Economy in Many Ways
• Holiday Inn Timeshares Not Slowing Down in this Economy
• More Timeshare Resort Destinations for Holiday Inn Vacation Club Timeshares
• More Orange Lake Timeshare Resorts Join the Holiday Inn Club Vacations Brand

The Utah Department of Workforce Services has recognized Marriott Vacation Club International Owners Services (Marriott Timeshare) as a 2009 winner of the “Utah’s Best Places to Work™ Work/Life Award.

Good Job Marriott Vacation Club International

This high recognition as one of Utah’s best places to work tells you, as a vacation property owner, that Marriott Vacation Club International values the people on the ‘front lines’ who provide timeshare owners with customer service, reservations, and Marriott Rewards assistance. When you interact with the staff and employees at Marriott Vacation Club, you are dealing with people who have lots of reasons to like their jobs. A positive, supportive workplace environment translates to workers who feel valued and respected, feelings they then share by being friendly, patient, and respectful with the nearly 395,000 Marriott timeshare owners they serve.

Ron Essig, vice president, global owner products and services for Marriott Vacation Club International, was quoted by The FINANCIAL as saying, “Being recognized as one of Utah’s “Best Places to Work” is a great honor for our division and continued affirmation of our outstanding Owner Services Associates. The foundation of Marriott Vacation Club International’s corporate culture and success is and always will be people first.”

The intent of the Utah Work/Life Award is to recognize and honor companies that create exceptional workplaces and businesses while effectively addressing employee work and life needs, and creating and maintaining a workplace culture of equity and opportunity.

Sell My Timeshare NOW, and The Timeshare Authority blog congratulate Marriott Vacation Club International for its exemplary efforts to maintain a great work environment for timeshare owner services employees. And we say “thank you Marriott timeshare” for all you have always done throughout the years to enhance and improve timesharing for timeshare owners, and everyone who is a part of the timeshare industry. Marriott timeshare employs over 450 people worldwide in Owner Services. Sell My Timeshare NOW, and The Timeshare Authority blog congratulate Marriott Vacation Club International for its exemplary efforts to maintain a great work environment for timeshare owner services employees. And we say “thank you Marriott timeshare” for all you have always done throughout the years to enhance and improve timesharing for timeshare owners, and everyone who is a part of the timeshare industry.

Have you noticed headlines about timeshare ownership or vacation resort property that warn you, “Timeshare Owners Can’t Resell Timeshare,” but the next day claim, “Timeshare Sales and Timeshare Resales are Gaining”?

Or how about the news from some timeshare sales companies that business is in a major slump only to follow that news in a few days or a few weeks by news with the same timeshare sales company claiming its business is rebounding and it is opening new resorts?

Mixed messaging is confusing. And frankly, it is sometimes a red flag that a company doesn’t have a firm grasp on what is happening internally. After the year we’ve all been through economically, watching pillars and icons of business crumble and fall, corporate mixed messaging no longer fools anyone.

In today’s business climate, consumers value consistency. A business may not be the biggest, sell the most, or offer the most different types of services in its field, but if it is consistent in what it delivers and honest in the message it sends, then let’s face it; we feel a lot more comfortable spending our money there.

Everyone is tired of the rollercoaster ride. Now consumers are sending their own message: “If your business is good, tell us; and if it is mediocre or even poor, tell us that, too. We are all watching our dollars and cents and any corporation or company that does not shoot straight with us is not likely to earn our trust.”

The Consistent, Reliable Message of Sell My Timeshare NOW

Sell My Timeshare NOW has been telling you the same thing for nearly six years—our timeshare resale and timeshare rental advertising business is good and we are growing. As both the consumer economy and the state of the industry have changed, we’ve made changes too. But our press releases, our advertising, our quarterly financial synopses, and our blog have all delivered a message of timeshare sales, timeshare rentals, new services, new staff, growth, and an ever-increasing level of leadership and participation in shaping our industry. There is no mixed messaging here.

We are not the biggest company in America or even the biggest in the timeshare business. We are not the oldest, the one with the most offices, or with the flashiest advertising. Instead, we are Sell My Timeshare NOW, a fast-growing, forward thinking, reliable, and straight shooting company.

Here are the twelve most recent media announcements Sell My Timeshare NOW has released since January 2009. The headlines tell the story …

1. New Booking Service in Timeshare Rentals Means Huge Vacation Savings Paired With the Ease of Online Reservations
2. Timeshare Resales Offers up 56 Percent on HOT 100 List as Americans Seek Vacation Savings
3. Timeshare Sales Management Expansion Part of Sell My Timeshare NOW’s Critical Growth Plan
4. Sell My Timeshare NOW Reports 95 Percent Growth in Offers During the First Quarter 2009
5. Timeshare Resales Advertising Executive Takes on Role as Myth Buster
6. Timeshare Resales CEO Part of Speakers Panel for National Timeshare Owners Association
7. Timeshare Broker Company Continues Success in a Down Economy
8. Sell My Timeshare NOW CEO to Speak on Timeshare Resales Panel at TATOC Conference
9. Timeshare Resales Company, Sell My Timeshare NOW Announces Hiring of President and COO
10. National Timeshare Owners Association Endorses Sell My Timeshare NOW
11. Timeshare Sales Advertising Leader Hires Jay Bade to Head Business Development
12. Despite the Economy, Consumers Are Buying and Renting Timeshare Resales and Sell My Timeshare NOW Has the Numbers to Prove It

Director of Communications Steve Luba gives a wrap-up of the latest happenings in the industry.