The Houston, Texas-based timeshare company, Raintree Vacation Club, released news this week that they are not only acquiring additional properties and opening new resorts, they are breaking sales records!

With sales offices in Cancun, Los Cabos, and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Raintree is the largest independent, US-based vacation ownership company operating in Mexico. The company currently has twenty-one timeshare resorts, ten of which are Mexico timeshare. Raintree Resorts can also be found in the western US and in western Canada.

In December, Raintree opened timeshare resort number 20 in Villa Vera Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Property number 21 came when Raintree Timeshares acquired the Phoenix resort previously known as Canyon View, currently under renovation.

According to the company’s president and CEO Doug Bech, the new Phoenix property represents “… over $100 million in future timeshare sales. It was acquired from Resort Funding, which is also providing an excellent working capital/receivables hypothecation line of credit for the consumer notes for both the Phoenix and Villa Vera Puerto Vallarta resorts. We will be rebranding this property quickly and begin operating it as a Raintree Resort.”

Raintree timeshares is pleased to be offering a new timeshare resort destination in Arizona, and enthusiastic about their relationship with Resort Funding, about whom Bech says, “… we believe we will have other future business.”

Clearly Raintree Resorts is Doing Things Right

You already know the situation for many timeshare companies and timeshare developers who are struggling to downsize and ride out the recession. Yet, Raintree is clearly doing things the right way. The company reported they were more than $8 million above sales, year-over-year for 2008.

Raintree Vacation Club is the exchange arm of Raintree Resorts, serving over 50,000 member/owners.

As the festivities of Super Bowl XLIII kick into high gear, football fans and partygoers by the thousands are descending on Tampa, St. Petersburg, all the surrounding “burgs” and even Orlando, which is some 70 miles away.

Tampa hotel rooms are sold out, although there are still some rooms available across the bay bridge on the beaches of St. Petersburg. If you can find a room in the Tampa area, expect to pay from $500 to $900 a night; if you opt for Orlando, the prices are about half that much this weekend. Of course, if you owned Florida timeshare, and had scheduled to use days during this week, you’d already have accommodations in the right place for taking in the hottest ticket in town.

A timeshare along Florida’s Gulf Coast would be especially convenient, but Tampa’s middle of the state location means that anywhere you own Florida timeshare, you would only be an easy half-day’s drive away from seeing the Pittsburgh Steelers take on the Arizona Cardinals.

Here’s what you could be enjoying:

Music: Celine Dion; The Eagles; Rihana; Fall Out Boy; Lifehouse; the Latin-flavored Pepsi Musica concert; the annual Super Bowl Gospel Celebration; jazz greats playing at the SuperLX Live! daytime concert ; and at halftime–Faith Hill; John Legend; and of course, The Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen.

Other Entertainment: Comedian Dane Cook; a youth football game featuring the L.A. All-Stars coached by rapper Snoop Dogg and a Tampa area team coached by former Tampa Bay Buccaneer Mike Alstott; and of course parties; parties and more parties. Some of the biggest names hosting (or attending) pre and post Super Bowl parties this year include Nelly; T-Pain; Flo Rida; Sean “Diddy” Combs; Paris Hilton; Kim Kardashian; Leigh Steinberg; Donald Trump; and Paris Hilton.

Area Attractions: Busch Gardens; historic Ybor City; the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino; and miles and miles of great beaches, including Fort DeSoto Park and Caladesi Island.

Use Your Timeshare Interval and Don’t Miss the Next Big Event

Okay, enough couch time; there’s a future sporting event calling you. Get a calendar. Go to Google. Look up all those championships you wish you could see live, but never do. Find future dates and locations, and then plan to use your timeshare days accordingly. You bought that timeshare to really enjoy … and seeing the Super Bowl, the NCAA basketball championship, NASCAR races, or any other monumental championship in sports is a perfect way to get the most out of timeshare ownership.

Starwood Hotels and Starwood Timeshares have just released a report stating that their fourth quarter profits fell by 46 percent. According to a statement released by Starwood, net income fell from $146 million (74 cents per share) to $79 million (43 cents per share), year-over-year. CEO Frits van Paasschen has authorized job cuts, the closing of Starwood timeshares sales centers, restaurant closings, and has suspended share buybacks. Forbes.com states that fourth quarter earnings at Starwood Hotels and Starwood timeshares was hurt by severance costs and a writedown for two vacation ownership projects.

“At the current time, given significant uncertainty in the global economy, it is very difficult to provide any definitive guidance looking out four quarters,” the Starwood statement read.

As bad as all this sounds, shares of Starwood stock rose following the release of the report, because share values were higher than predicted by analysts. At the same time Starwood stocks were gaining, Marriott International fell 1.3 percent; Choice Hotels was down .6 percent, and Wyndham Worldwide dropped by 7 percent. (source: http://uk.reuters.com)

Starwood Hotels and Starwood Timeshares to Receive Tax Refund

Starwood Hotel and Timeshare company is due for an income tax refund from the federal government – a $200 million refund. For several years, Starwood has been in negotiations with the IRS, regarding the tax treatment of the sale of World Directories in 1998. Starwood and the IRS have finally reached an agreement, and the refund, scheduled to be received later this year – couldn’t come at a better time.

No Reason for Starwood Timeshare Owners to Panic

Starwood, like so many other timeshare companies, is feeling significant pain from the decline in consumer spending and the tight credit market. But in the vein of “what doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger,” Starwood and other hoteliers and timeshare companies will likely emerge from the recession as stronger companies, with better internal checks and balances, fewer non-performing properties on their books, and a leaner, cleaner approach to doing business. Starwood is moving forward with expansion plans that include opening 100 new hotels this year; expanding its hotel network by more than 40 percent over the next five years; and reaching the significant milestone of opening its 100th resort later this year.

Westgate Timeshares is one of two companies that have agreed to settle in a Federal Trade Commission (FTC investigation into some of the timeshare companies’ marketing practices.

The FTC had brought charges against Westgate Resorts timeshare, and against Accumen Management Services, Inc, and its subsidiary All-in-One vacation Club, LLC for violating the National Do Not Call list. Westgate timeshares will pay $900,000 in the settlement while Accumen will pay $275,000.

Both companies were charged with making telemarketing calls to consumers who had completed entry forms for a sweepstakes. Consumers entering the sweepstakes believed they would be eligible to win a vacation package. Westgate, according to the Orlando Sentinel argued that people who give out their personal information, including their phone number, expect to be contacted. They also blamed a third-party lead provider for the violations, and pointed out that they no longer do business with that company.

Westgate Timeshare Asked for Leniency

Asking for financial leniency due to the nationwide recession and credit crisis, Michael Marder, attorney for Westgate timeshares, says they receive a “disappointing response”.

An Associated Press article, states that more than 167 million phone numbers have been placed on the Do Not Call registry and that the FTC has received thousands of complaints against Westgate timeshare over this matter.

This is a tough time for Westgate timeshares, (who has already laid off thousands of employees) to have to pay this kind of money. But there is always good news in a situation like this; any time the government sends a message like this, it helps keep unethical business practices in check, across the board. On top of that, the $1.2 million collected will go in the US Treasury – and in the end, that benefits all of us.

Other recent The Timeshare Authority blog posts about Westgate timeshare:

• Orlando Timeshare Workers Face More Cutbacks
• Further Layoffs at Westgate Timeshare
• The Other Side to the Westgate Timeshare Lawsuit Story
• More Bad News for Westgate Timeshares, Hit with $1 Million Judgment