Tucker Carlson, speaking at ARDA Fall Conference

The final day of the ARDA Fall timeshare conference is highlighted by the Chairman’s League Breakfast Keynote Speaker, Tucker Carlson.

Tucker Carlson is a contributor to FOX News, the editor-in-chief of the Daily Caller news site and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Known internationally as a witty and acerbic commentator,  Carlson will take an irreverent but insightful  look at Washington, the divided Congress, President Barack Obama’s administration and the upcoming 2012 elections.

Fans of Carlson know him from hosting varying network news and news-talk shows including CNN’s Crossfire, and several shows on MSNBC and PBS.

As an excellent ARDA Fall Conference winds to a close today, Sell My Timeshare NOW and Timeshare Broker Services would like to thank the event sponsors and supporters,  including:

ARDA-ROC, RCI, Interval International, Trooval, Wells Fargo, Ballard Spahr LLP, Chicago Title, First American Title, CustomerCount, Kees Vacation Rentals, Preston Arza LLP, TimeShareWare, The Trades Publishing Company, Vacation Storebuilder, American Express, Diamond Resorts International, Equiant Financial Services, Hilton Grand Vacations, Holiday Inn Club Vacations, HSI (Holiday Systems International), ICE Enterprise, Interval International, RCI, ResortCom International, Starwood Vacation Ownership, TimeShareWare, and Wyndham Vacation Ownership.

The American Resort Development Association of Hawaii (ARDA-Hawaii) has launched if first annual Timeshare with Aloha Awards.

Seeking to find the most outstanding Hawaii timeshare and resort industry employee from each of the islands of Hawaii, Kauai, Maui and Oahu, ARDA-Hawaii is accepting nominees now through October 31, 2011.

The goal of this contest is to find those Hawaii timeshare employees who exemplify service and excellence as part of the thriving Hawaii timeshare industry. Candidates will be judged on their dedication in the workplace, relationship with coworkers, extraordinary customer service, and community volunteerism.

ARDA-Hawaii Chair Daniel Dinell, Regional Vice President of Sales & Marketing Programs at Hilton Grand Vacations, explains, “We want to recognize those who make Hawaii such a special place to visit, beyond what we have to offer in terms of sand, sun and surf. By truly embodying and living the aloha spirit in what they do each day, contenders for the Timeshare with Aloha Award create an unforgettable experience for visitors to our islands.”

There is no application fee to nominate a Hawaii timeshare  industry employee and nominations may be made either by companies or by individuals. A narrative of fewer than 250 words should accompany each nomination application, explaining why this nominee should be considered.

Nomination forms are available at http://www.arda.org/alohaawards or by contacting timeshare@brightlightmarketing.com.

Each of the winners will receive a two-night stay at a Hawaii timeshare resort and $1,000 in cash.

ARDA-Hawaii

If only you had been at your Waikiki Beach timeshare last week, you could have joined the Hawaii Five-O season premier party on Sunset Beach. You would already know what is going on with Wo Fat killing the Governor and framing McGarrett for it. Instead, you will have to wait until this Monday night, and watch CBS for the season premier episode along with the rest of the show’s fans.

But this winter, instead of watching McGarrett, Danno, and Kono in the warm Hawaiian sunshine while you shiver in your sweatshirt and the snow piles up outside, why not get in on some of that fun with your own Hawaii timeshare vacation? Go, enjoy the sun and the sand as well as all that Waikiki is known for, like the surfing at Diamond Head, the Honolulu Zoo and the Waikiki Aquarium. Take in the sights at nearby Pearl Harbor and the Iolani Palace.

Although once considered the recreational playground for Hawaiian royalty, today Waikiki is the most popular hotel, timeshare and resort area on the island of Ohau. And you could be vacationing there instead of just watching it on TV.

Here are only a few of the choices you have for a Waikiki Hawaii timeshare resale or rental vacation. Why not explore them now, pick the one that appeals to you most and then tell the timeshare resale and rental specialists at Sell My Timeshare NOW to: “Book ‘em Danno!”

• Sweetwater at Waikiki timeshare
• Waikiki Marina Resort at the Ilikai Shell
• The Wyland Waikiki timeshare
• Wyndham at Waikiki Beach Walk timeshare
• Wyndham Outrigger Waikiki on the Beach
• Wyndham Royal Garden at Waikiki timeshare
• Ohana Islander Waikiki timeshare
• Outrigger Luana Waikiki timeshare
• Hawaiian Sun Holidays at the Waikiki Banyan timeshare
• Hilton Grand Waikikian
• Legacy Vacation Club Waikiki
• Royal Aloha Waikiki Aloha Sky Towers

Here is a list of various updates and information available at this time:

Timeshare and Hotel News

Coastal North Carolina timeshares with updated information include:

A Place at the Beach resort in Atlantic Beach, which is open to owners and guests. Contact them at (252) 247-0906.

Barrier Island Station-Duck and Ocean Pines resorts remain closed to owners and guests at this time. The staff is onsite assessing the properties and making any necessary repairs. These resorts both anticipate being open for check-ins by Wednesday, August 31 at noon. Call the SPM Resorts corporate office with any questions at (843) 238-5000.

Outer Banks Beach Clubs I & II are still cleaning up from the storm. The resort hopes to be back up and running by Tuesday, August 30 at noon. The power and phone lines are out at the main office, so if you have any questions, please call the SPM Resorts corporate office at (843) 238-5000.

The Ocean Club on Smuggler’s Beach is open to owners and guests. Should you have any questions regarding this resort, contact them at (508) 398-6955.

In New York City, most guests or timeshare owners at West 57th Street by Hilton Club and The Hilton Club left the city prior to Hurricane Irene reaching the area. Hilton Vacation Club is instructing club members with upcoming August reservations to contact a Club Counselor if they need to arrange cancellation details.

Marriott Hotels and Marriott Vacation Club International announced that its properties along the Eastern Seaboard prepared for the storm, except in areas where evacuation was ordered, in which case, Marriott complied. Marriott posted notice on its website stating that generally, cancellation fees were being waived “for guests holding confirmed reservations at the hotels that are or will be affected by the storm. However, hotels reserve the right to make this decision on a case-by-case basis.”

Travel News

AirTran, American, Continental, US Airways, United, Delta, JetBlue, and Southwest have suspended ticket-change fees for passengers scheduled to fly to or from many cities along the East Coast over the weekend and early next week.

If your travel plans involve any form of public transportation, use of ferries, bridges, toll roads, tunnels, etc. along the eastern seaboard and south into Virginia and North Carolina, assume you should call first to confirm that the systems are operable and travel routes are open.

Above all else … remember to call ahead before you travel and be patient with the weary individuals on the other end of the line, knowing they are likely serving many callers and answering endless numbers of questions.

In a joint venture project between Marriott’s Courtyard and Residence Inn brands, Marriott has announced plans to build New York City’s tallest standalone hotel.

To be located at 1717 Broadway at 54th Street, the hotel will be over 752 feet tall and will become the tallest standalone hotel building (meaning a hotel that does not also contain office or residential space) in New York City. The building is planned to include only Marriott accommodations and amenities, restaurants and shopping.

The property does not call for any Marriott Vacation Club timeshares, a separate company under the Marriott brand. It will include some 378 Courtyard by Marriott hotel rooms on floors 6 through 32 and another 261 Residence Inn by Marriott suites on floors 36 through 64. Additionally there will be floors designated to amenities such as exercise areas, lounges and business centers for each of the two Marriott brands.

New York City Timeshare

Competitive properties for both overnight and extended stays in New York City include urban timeshare at the Manhattan Club, Hilton Club New York, and the Hilton Grand Vacations Club, West 57^th Street.

Currently the new Marriott Courtyard and Residence Inn Manhattan/Central Park is scheduled to open late in 2013.

ARDA Hawaii, (American Resort Development Association) has awarded two Maui students Steve Hirano Memorial Scholarship Awards of $1,000 each. Bronson Maulupe-Kanae and Chassidy Sakamoto are both Travel Industry Management students at Hawaii Pacific University.

Daniel Dinell, Regional Vice President of Sales & Marketing Programs for Hilton Grand Vacations Club’s Asia/Pacific region and ARDA Hawaii Chair, said, “Bronson and Chassidy exemplify the kind of driven and ardent students and young professionals Hawaii needs in timeshare and travel industry management. The generosity of the donors and sponsors who support the scholarship fund make it possible for us to continue helping students pursuing careers in our state’s most prominent industry.”

Each year ARDA Hawaii raises money for the scholarships through its annual golf tournament, which helps underwrite the Steve Hirano Memorial Scholarship fund. Hirano was a long-time supporter of the Hawaii timeshare industry. Over the past 7 years, the program has raised more than $70,000 for the scholarship fund.

About the Student Winners of the ARDA Timeshare Association Scholarship

To be considered for this scholarship award, student must be enrolled as fulltime students at the TIM (Travel Industry Management) program at HPU; be either a Junior or Senior class member and have a minimum GPA of 3.2.

Bronson Maulupe-Kanae, of Kahului, is a 2009 graduate of Maui High School. He is scheduled to graduate from HPU with a bachelor’s degree in spring 2013. Chassidy Sakamoto is a 2010 graduate of H.P. Baldwin High School, a resident of Kahului, and is scheduled to graduate from HPU in the spring of 2014.

Today Sell My Timeshare NOW released its second announcement to the media regarding growth in timeshare sales through our timeshare brokerage division, Timeshare Broker Services.

As we noted, we saw a 109 percent increase in broker assisted timeshare sales for the month of July 2011 over July 2010. These numbers reflect the strong demand there is to buy timeshare on the resale market and the interest in both the large hospitality brand resorts, including Hyatt Vacation Club, Starwood timeshare, Disney Vacation Club, Hilton timeshare, and in independent timeshare brands, that offer quality resorts but may not be as well known.

While our by-owner timeshare sales remain solid, we’ve also focused a great deal of attention this past year on building our timeshare brokerage services, too. It comes down to offering more choices to consumers, and we think that is very important.

Why Offer 2 Different Types of Timeshare Sales?

Timeshare ownership comes in many formats. There are fixed week timeshares, floating timeshare, timeshares owned by deed, owned by right to use, and timeshare ownership through points or vacation clubs. The product a potential seller has may be as small as a studio unit may, or it may be a spacious multi-bedroom, multi-bathroom timeshare. Some timeshares are at high demand locations during popular weeks and others are at more off-the-beaten path destinations, or are during less-busy seasons of the year.

Just as timeshares come in all types, so do timeshare owners. Some people seek to sell timeshare because their family has changed or they simply don’t vacation in the same way they once did. Others are facing a life transition, such as marriage, divorce, relocation, retirement, illness, or any of a number of reasons that vacation patterns could change. And still other timeshare owners want to sell their timeshare so they can purchase different timeshares elsewhere.

One size rarely fits all and clearly one method of timeshare resales doesn’t either.

For owners who want to be hands-on in their timeshare resale transaction, by owner services may be the best option. These consumers pay to advertise their timeshare on the high visibility websites of Sell My Timeshare NOW. When the product sells, the money made is wholly their own; no commission is owed. If a by owner seller needs assistance along the way, we are there to assist them in connecting with the right professionals.

But, many timeshare owners want a turn-key approach to timeshare sales. They prefer to put their timeshare sale in the hands of a licensed real estate professional, and let that timeshare broker take it from there. For these owners, the process is simple and when the timeshare sells, a commission is paid to the broker for his or her services.
Timeshare resales at Sell My Timeshare NOW– it is one service with a choice of two approaches. Please read our full media release, Sell My Timeshare NOW Posts Dramatic Quarterly Gains Through Timeshare Brokerage, to learn more.

In today’s business economy, it is especially gratifying to post positive news. Today we just released news that Sell My Timeshare NOW has posted 27.5 percent increase in broker assisted timeshare sales, year-over-year, through the end of the second quarter of this year.

These numbers focus on our timeshare brokerage business, Timeshare Broker Services, though, which we offer full-service timeshare resale brokerage. And in the month of July alone, we saw a 109 percent increase in timeshare broker assisted sales month-over-month, as compared to July last year.

Why Are Timeshare Sales through Timeshare Broker Services So Strong?

We see several factors feeding into the strength of broker-assisted timeshare resales, and it is interesting to note that these strong sales are both in the branded hospitality providers such as Disney Vacation Club, Starwood timeshare, Hilton timeshare, Hyatt Vacation Club and others but just as much in independent timeshare brands –names you may or may not know as well.

First, demand for timeshare on the secondary market is strong. At Sell My Timeshare NOW, we have committed to offering clients the services they really want and value. That’s why we provide both by-owner timeshare resale advertising and a full-service timeshare brokerage.

With the leadership of Jerome Bocquet, vice president of our brokerage division, Timeshare Broker Services, we have focused on in-depth broker training and expanded services.

We’ve also launched a major redesign of our main website, www.sellmytimesharenow.com. We’ve made it easier and more intuitive for prospective buyers and renters to search for timeshare resales and rentals.

There’s a lot going on at Sell My Timeshare NOW and Timeshare Broker Services and we’ll continue to share it with you here on The Timeshare Authority blog.

Follow this link to read our full media release, Sell My Timeshare NOW Posts Substantial Gains in Quarterly Sales through Timeshare Brokerage.

In a recent article by timeshare maven, Marge Lennon, for the Resort Trades magazine, Marge looked at how timeshare resorts communicate with their owners.

Interviewing representatives from Bluegreen timeshare, Grand Pacific, Hilton, and Club Intrawest, Marge talked to these industry leaders about their communications, and how they utilize both print and electronic distribution.

While print remains important, and should not be eliminated from the ways timeshare companies correspond with their owners, it is clear that most timeshare owners are electronically connected, wired-in, and internet savvy. The article showed Grand Pacific timeshare has 45,000 owners, and has email addresses for 76 percent of these owners.

Bluegreen timeshares has 161,000 members of the Bluegreen Vacation Club, 84 percent of whom have provided active email addresses to Bluegreen.

Hilton timeshares has more than 167,000 vacation club members, of which Hilton has an email address for 98 percent. And Club Intrawest, with 22,000 members, has email addresses for 99 percent of these member/owners.

Electronic vs. Snail Mail for Timeshare Owners and Others

Last week the US federal government announced the closing of 3,653 US post offices across the country. Although this reportedly may be somewhat offset with the creation of some 2,500 village post offices to be created in grocery and convenience stores, the general transition from physical mail to electronic mail is patently obvious.

Electronic communication is faster, environmentally cleaner, and cheaper than sending physical mail. And the fact that so many timeshare owners opt to receive regular communication this way reinforces the perception that timeshare buyers, owners and renters like to use their computers as a way to plan vacations, sell, buy or rent properties, and exchange timeshare.

But here’s one last lesson to be learned for all of us, when we look at what is more than a trend but is a new, and likely permanent direction for business-to-consumer communication. As the piles of junk mail decline and people become accustomed to seeing less and less in their mailboxes, the value and significance of a personal letter, especially one with hand written comments, will become profoundly more effective and meaningful.

Be sure you look for the full article, titled “Owner Communications: Print vs. Electronic?” which appeared in the July/August issue of Resort Trades Management & Operations.

Tom Goetschius, RRP, a consultant and trainer for the timeshare and vacation ownership industry, has been named Senior Advisor and sales and marketing coordinator for the Tamarack Lodge Resort in Traverse City, Michigan.

To this position, Goetschius brings 25 years of timeshare industry experience that includes working with Hilton Grand Vacations; Fairfield Communities (now Wyndham); and Orange Lake Country Club.

Tamarack Lodge Fractional Ownership Opportunities

The Tamarack Lodge, located in the resort destination of Traverse City, is a luxury 29-unit property, situated on the beaches of East Grand Traverse Bay. Ownership is sold as a fractional property with one-eight shares (six weeks) for each owner, as well as more traditional timeshare sales with fixed ownership in two-week intervals.

Build and decorated in a style reminiscent of the grand lodges of yesterday, owners can select 1-, 2-, and 3-bedroom spacious units; with water views of the lake; private balconies; full gourmet kitchens with granite countertops; and much more.

This peaceful retreat offers water sports, championship golf, and downhill and cross-country skiing as well as other winter sports. The Tamarack Lodge, like other Michigan timeshare resorts is within convenient travel distance from many major metropolitan areas and affords many urbanites a venue for enjoying fresh air and a relaxing vacation with an emphasis on outdoor activities and recreation.