Last week Florida’s Timeshare Resale Accountability Act passed the Business and Consumer Affairs Subcommittee on Tuesday with a 14-0 vote. On Thursday, the bill’s Senate counterpart, SB 1408, received unanimous approval from the Regulated Industries Committee.

Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, R-Orlando, sponsors HB 1001. SB 1408 is sponsored by Sen. Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando.

The bill has the support of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as well as that of the American Resort Development Association (ARDA).

Among other requisites, the proposed bill would prohibit a timeshare sales company from telling timeshare owners it has a buyer lined up unless the reseller provides the current timeshare owner with the name, address and telephone number of the potential buyer. The bill also provides for an “unwaivable right to cancel” within 10 days of a timeshare sale.

Uniform guidelines for timeshare resale services are much needed, and if structured fairly, should enhance the industry and strengthen consumer confidence in the product.

Previous news on The Timeshare Authority related to the proposed new Florida timeshare laws:

Timeshare resales: History will keep repeating itself until we finally get it right

Today in Timeshare from The Resort Trades

ARDA Supports the Proposed Florida Timeshare Resale Accountability Act

Author Christopher Elliott had a blog post recently, titled: 12 Things You Shouldn’t Do in 2012. Everything he recommends is a well-placed word to the wise. You might think, here on The Timeshare Authority blog, we wouldn’t be quoting Elliott, who as a consumer advocate has been known to warn his readers about timeshare sales.

But frankly, we agree with many of the points Elliott raises in general and also in his new book, Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. To his credit, he doesn’t echo the often-said, never-correct message that all timeshares are bad, or that consumers are less than smart for buying them. Instead, he tells consumers not to buy timeshares (or anything else) under pressure. He goes so far as to say that in his opinion, buying timeshare can lead to regrets, but he points out there are reasons for these regrets:

• Timeshares come with fees. If you understand before you buy that your timeshare will be subject to an annual fee that will increase over time, and that other, additional fees can be placed on your timeshare over the years you own it, then you are going into your purchase as an educated buyer.
• Timeshares depreciate. You should understand this before you buy your timeshare. Depreciation doesn’t stop you from buying automobiles, electronics, or jewelry, but you won’t be happy if you buy timeshare expecting it to increase in value.
• Timeshares have rules. While Elliott calls these unreasonable rules, these rules probably fall more into the category of many other “unreasonable rules” such as those issued by airlines, hotels, restaurants, and other service industries. The rules are in place to enhance the way the product works for the greatest number of people using it. They won’t always work for everyone. There may be rules you don’t like or rules that don’t work for you. And if you buy timeshare expecting there to be no rules at all, you will be disappointed.

It’s this simple: when you buy a product that you haven’t researched, that you buy under pressure, and without fully understanding what you are buying, you can wind up with regrets. And this is true whether you are purchasing a timeshare, a television, or a toaster; it’s just that in most cases, your expenditure for the timeshare is much greater than it is for a TV and unlike a toaster, if you are truly dissatisfied, you can’t just walk to the trash and throw away your timeshare.

There is no one size fits all. It doesn’t exist in clothing, real estate, or consumer services and it certainly doesn’t apply when it comes to vacations and vacation ownership. When it comes to the truth about timeshares, don’t believe sales hype that isn’t logical and don’t believe negative criticisms that are the result of critics piling on a topic they don’t understand.

As Groucho Marx said, “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?” … Do your own research before you buy timeshare. Understand the rules, investigate the fees, ask current and past owners, and take a timeshare rental vacation at the property where you are considering becoming an owner.

Over 80 percent of timeshare owners say they are satisfied with their purchase; many are so happy with one timeshare that they go on to purchase two, three, or more timeshares or timeshare resales. When it comes to timeshares, there really aren’t 12 things you shouldn’t do; there is only one. Don’t be an uneducated, impulsive buyer.

Vacationing can be an important part of your healthier new routine says VacationBetter.org and the American Resort Development Association (ARDA), and the timeshare industry is working hard to make it easier to do.

A media release yesterday by VacationBetter.org points out that your resolve to live a healthier lifestyle doesn’t have to dwindle as the New Year transitions into a daily routine. A yearlong—or better still, lifelong—commitment to live a healthier life includes both downtime away from your daily grind and pressures and the opportunity to enjoy more healthful experiences during that vacation time.

David Gilbert, executive vice president of resort sales and marketing Americas for timeshare exchange company, Interval International, says, “Many of our clients’ properties in the Americas and the Caribbean have fitness centers and full-service spas, and those with restaurants are presenting healthier menu options.  This increased consciousness of wellness is reflected in Interval’s most recent U.S. member profile.  Reporting on their preferred vacation activities, nearly half of those surveyed include working out and exercising while close to 40 percent cite spa services.”

As Howard Nusbaum, president and CEO of ARDA, explains, “Health and wellness amenities are growing in popularity among timeshare owners and resorts are now using these programs to attract new timeshare consumers unfamiliar that such vacation products exist.”

Read: TIMESHARE INDUSTRY SAYS WELLNESS TREND IS HERE TO STAY IN 2012

The following article appears in this month’s issue of The Resort Trades and is republished here with their permission.  We hope you will also read it online or in their print publication.

Timeshare: 2012 means the need for more cowbell

By Jason Tremblay

Presuming that the prognostications for a year 2012 doomsday are in error, there is still much about the upcoming year that promises to be remarkable, even watershed in its impact on all our lives.

Here in the U.S., in 2012, we will elect (or re-elect) a president and for a while, we will discuss it daily – hourly. Other changes will happen that we will pay much less attention to because change has become so normal that we only notice if the changing stops. The IRS, the USGA, and the NCAA will all tinker with their rules and regulations, Apple will introduce yet another version of the iPhone, and Facebook will change a little or a lot, and most likely will change both a little AND a lot.

But what will the year 2012 mean to the timeshare industry? What will change in timeshare and vacation ownership sales, resales, and rentals?

The truth is, these are the wrong questions to ask. The better, more insightful questions are:

• What will 2012 bring for current timeshare owners that will make buying, owning, renting, and selling timeshare an easier, more flexible and more trustworthy process?

• And the far tougher question to answer; how do we get there from here, creating an owner-centric product and industry?

Timeshares: we are already behind

Much of the timeshare industry is just getting used to the idea that consumers buy and rent timeshare online. In 2011, online response to retail promotions (for all types of retail sales, not exclusively timeshare and vacation accommodations) increased by 33 percent over 2010. Consumer spending for online purchases in the first three quarters of 2011 was up 13 percent over the same period in the previous year. This translates to nearly $125 billion and that number does not include the seasonally strong sales of November and December 2011.

Just as many timeshare developers and others have finally come to grasp that search engines define user experience, 2012 will hit with the revelation that timeshare consumers, as Internet users, now define the search engine experience.

For a nanosecond in the timeline of Internet experience, businesses realized that content was king and were able to go for it. And just as we’ve all become vaguely comfortable with blogging, videoing, and otherwise creating Internet content, we are being presented with the reality that content creation has become secondary to content curation. We have become what Steven Rosenbaum, founder and CEO of magnify.net, describes as a “curation nation” where those who can quantify, parse, and categorize the surging data stream of content are fast becoming the definers of what succeeds and what fails in business today.

Pursued by data

Where once we went in search of data, data now searches for us. Social media brings a stream – a torrent – of information that follows us from our computers to our tablets to our phones, television sets, and automobiles. If you haven’t recently been through the appliance section at your local big box store, you may be surprised to learn that today’s refrigerators not only deliver ice and water to the door, but a touch screen data center with Internet access as well. Information now pursues us and remarkably, we like it that way.

In the past year, mobile Internet searches have quadrupled, and for many items, one in seven searches is now made from a mobile device. Users of smart phones have now downloaded apps nearly 11 billion times and the demand for mobile apps is not expected to peak until sometime in 2013 – that is unless nuances unfold to create even more demand for even more apps, which is of course entirely likely.

Set fire to the rulebook

The timeshare industry can be like other groups that strive to write and incessantly refine rulebooks by which to guide, govern and control their members/users and marketplaces. If we stick with that path, we will become annoying, misunderstood, and outdated. And if you troll around in public perception, listening to how often and how brutally timeshares and timeshare sales are the butt of some pretty pathetic jokes, then you may even come to the conclusion that the industry, as it stands, is already annoying, misunderstood, and outdated in the minds of many.

We have to step down as conductors. The world is changing almost faster than we can process the change. Timeshares are a truly great product, challenged only by questionable marketing and sales models.
Consumers are going to define how vacation ownership is used and enjoyed. Current owners and future buyers and renters will dictate the product, its terms, how we market it to them and even how it is bought, rented or sold.

We have to stop orchestrating. The bell is already tolling; this is the reality of business in the year 2012. Let’s embrace and respond to a new tune. Timeshares need more cowbell and the marketplace is playing our song.

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” Thomas Jefferson

High-energy people often say, “You make your own luck.” As it turns out, researchers are proving that statement may be overwhelmingly accurate. Here’s how it works:

Expectation drives results. If you woke up this morning thinking, “oh no, it’s Friday the 13^th” then you may have set yourself up for bad luck and negative experiences. But if, on the other hand, you bounded out of bed this morning saying, “Thank goodness it’s Friday the 13^th, my lucky day!” then you very likely laid the groundwork for good luck and positive experiences.

Research proves that people who expect good results are more likely to receive them than are people who expect poor results. But this is less about your capability to control the universe and more about your beliefs driving your own self confidence, actions, and ultimately your success. As Professor Ben Fletcher, PhD, and  a specialist in the study of how behavioral changes improve your lot in life, explains, “It’s not that there’s some magic to any of this. Expectancy is a real driver of behavior.”

Lucky People Keep Getting Luckier

Lucky people expect positive results therefore they act in ways that set themselves up to experience these and other positive outcomes. When opportunities avail themselves, lucky people are open to seeing them. “Unlucky” people are often so focused on avoiding or dealing with misfortune they anticipate experiencing that they miss the open door of possibilities.

Dr. Richard Wiseman, author of The Luck Factor, tested the theory that unlucky people are essentially blinded to opportunity. He asked a group of test subjects to identify whether they were lucky or unlucky. Then he gave all of the subjects a copy of the same newspaper and asked them to count the photos in the paper. Published in the paper was also a large ad that said, “Tell the experimenter that you have seen this and win $250.”

The majority of the self-identified lucky people saw the ad; the majority of those who had identified themselves as unlucky, missed it.

How to be Lucky in Timeshares

With all the bad press about timeshare fraud, you could easily be deterred from taking advantage of the great deals in timeshare resales and timeshare rentals. In the process, you would miss some of the most affordable vacation options out there. You would wind up continuing to take your holidays in a crowded hotel room or on the pullout couch at Aunt Louise and Uncle Henry’s house. But isn’t it time you stop letting other people have all the good luck?

Get lucky by first doing your self-analysis of what really matters most to you in a vacation. Decide if you want luxury, entertainment, or a quiet retreat. Consider when you can be available to holiday… can you go any time of the year or are you restricted by work or school holidays? Decide whether you want to be able to leave your vacation ownership property to your heirs or whether you are just fine to use it and enjoy it now, without planning it as a bequest to your children. Lastly, think about how you like to vacation now and how those preferences will change over time. For instance, will your kids always love a theme park vacation or one day will they prefer to hit the ski slopes instead?

Now do your research. There are thousands of timeshare resorts available, of all sizes, locations, terms of ownership, and level of amenities. There are great deals in new timeshare and even better deals in timeshare resales and timeshare rentals.

Be lucky. Claim your own good fortune in the form of easy vacation planning, great experiences, wonderful memories, and time you spend relaxing, recharging, and reenergizing your life. Approach timeshares with your eyes wide open to all the opportunities.

After all, with 2012 being a year we hit the max number of Friday the 13ths, wouldn’t it be excellent is that just happened to be your lucky day?

Contact us at Sell My Timeshare NOW and Timeshare Broker Services. We will help you plan a fortuitous vacation experience for Friday, April 13, 2012; Friday July 13, 2012; or any other “lucky” day of the year.

More on the subject:

How To Make Your Own Luck a Fast Company Interview with Dr. Richard Wiseman on the topic of Luck.

Perspective Magazine has announced it has opened online voting to timeshare and fractional industry professionals for its 2012 awards. You can cast your vote by going to http://perspectivemagazine.com as a registered site member and then clicking on the Awards icon to begin the process.

The Perspective Magazine Awards Program is sponsored by Holiday Systems International and allows thousands from the timeshare industry to vote for these awards. The unique system totals the results of the industry peer votes into one wildcard vote, which is then considered along with the votes of four timeshare and fractional industry judges, with each of the five votes accounting for equal weight (20 percent) in the decision process.

This year’s awards categories include “Best Timeshare Unit” and “Best Fractional Resort” among others. The category of “Best Developer Partner” has been expanded to include nominees from companies with more than 50 employees and also timeshare companies with less than 50 employees.

Voting ends January 27, 2012. Award winners will be announced at the Gala dinner at the Hacienda Tres Rios Resort on February 2, 2012. This a part of the January 31 – February 2, 2012 GNEX 2012 Global Event being held at the Ritz Carlton Cancun in Cancun, Mexico. Sell My Timeshare NOW will be the Lunch sponsor during Day Two of GNEX 2012

The following excerpt is from the article “Today in Timeshare” written by Sharon Drechsler-Scott for the January 2012 issue of The Resort Trades. It is reprinted here with permission from The Resort Trades. Described as a “Window into the industry” we encourage you to read this timely article in full in the print edition of the magazine or online at: http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1v5cg/January2012TheResort/resources/14.htm

…Closing remarks: Jason Tremblay, CEO, Sell My Timeshare NOW

While investigating the proposed introduction of timeshare resale legislation in Florida, Resort Trades caught up with the owner of the resale firm, Sell My Timeshare NOW, Jason Tremblay. As he puts its, “Resales and transfer companies are topics about which  I certainly have a lot of passion. No entrepreneur wants to hear the government is going to impose an increased burden on their business and obviously, compliance with additional regulations will cost Sell My Timeshare Now time and money. However, we are supportive of regulations that are reasonable and which can be enforced fairly.”

Tremblay compares the current abuse of consumers by resale operators who behave unethically and unlawfully to the situation in which timeshare found itself in the early ‘80s prior to the introduction of timeshare regulations: Then as now, there were a few bad players using clearly unethical marketing practices that threatened the very foundations of the industry.

“We hope to see that Florida Attorney General Bondi will carefully review ARDA’s Timeshare Resale Model Act while crafting her proposed bill with an eye to ensuring that regulations will be enforceable. For example, we understand that one portion of her draft legislation calls for all third-party advertisers to be able to disclose past success rates, regardless of whether they solicit customers (which we do not). For those of us who frequently connect buyers directly with owners, we have no way of tracking the success of those contacts once they are conversing independently. So we do hope this proposed legislation will understand the need for practicality in their requirements for advertisers.”

“But overall,” says Tremblay, “we are very glad to see some legislation being considered that will reduce consumer fraud. It’s been a space that has been unregulated for too long. And it will be far easier to stop someone who is clearly breaking the law than it would be to prove the intent to commit fraud as things stand today.”

The opening keynote speaker for this year’s ARDA World 2012 timeshare industry conference will be noted loyalty expert and the creator of the “Net Promoter Score,” Frederick Reichheld.

Reichheld is the founder of Bain & Company’s loyalty practice, is a Bain Fellow, and is responsible for helping companies achieve enhanced results by strengthening customer and employee loyalty. He is the creator of the Net Promoter system of management.

Reichheld has authored numerous bestselling books, including: The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value (HBSP 1996); Loyalty Rules! How Today’s Leaders Build Lasting Relationships (HBSP 2001), and The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth (HBSP, 2006).

His newest book, The Ultimate Question 2.0: How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer Driven World (HBR Press-Sept. 2011), looks at how businesses practicing the Net Promoter System (NPS) have used Reichheld’s principles to generate exceptional results. Included among those noteworthy companies are: American Express, Apple Retail, Philips, Schwab, Allianz, and Intuit.

ARDA Timeshare Conference

The keynote address of Frederick Reichheld will be only one of many highlights of this year’s ARDA The World 2012 Conference, scheduled for April 1-5, 2012, at The Venetian Resort Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Follow this link to register for the ARDA The World 2012 timeshare conference. And be sure to play the video to learn more about the wisdom and insights of Frederick Reichheld.

The US Virgin Islands has passed a bill to legalize and regulate OPC activity in the Virgin Islands.

OPC, stands for off property contact, outside public contact, or off premises contact. Either way, the acronym refers to the timeshare sales individuals who approach you for the purpose of engaging you in a timeshare sales presentation. They typically make contact with you when you are shopping, sightseeing, walking through the lobby of your hotel, or otherwise enjoying your vacation time.

The new Amendment 29-627, attached to Bill 29-0114, will require all OPCs to obtain a business license through the US Virgin Islands Department of Licensing and Consumer Affairs.  Follow this link to view more about the bill,  however, the bill itself is not the key to this action. Instead, it is specifically Amendment 29-627, which was attached.

Passing with a vote of 14 to 1 in favor of the bill, regulating OPC’s was an easy argument. Requiring licensing of OPC’s helps control the activity, generates tax revenue, perhaps creates jobs, and hopefully helps enhance an environment that is appealing to tourists and future tourism.

Until a few years ago, OPC licensing was actually required in the US Virgin Islands. Then a law was passed banning “street barking” which coincidentally did away with licensing for OPC’s. The notes attached to the amendment state, “The loss of a license to OPC has severely impacted the sale of timeshare.”

Governor de Jongh, is expected to sign the bill into law this week.

Last June, Bluegreen timeshare rolled out its new Owner Update website. This is a WordPress platform website (meaning it is built on the highly versatile WordPress blogging platform) that offers Bluegreen timeshare owners an easy-to-navigate, highly user-friendly way to stay current on the news, updates and offerings of Bluegreen Resorts.

Now to expand the functionality of its Owner Update website, Bluegreen is also offering the Owner Update in a format specifically designed  for web tablets.

Izzy Pycher, vice president, Creative Services  at Bluegreen says, “This web tablet is a leading edge timeshare innovation that gives owners access to the Owner Update site from anywhere they take their tablet.”

What Timeshare Owners Want and Where the Timeshare Industry Ought to Be

The business model of expecting consumers to adapt to a business or industry’s marketing style, (simply because the industry has always done it that way) is outmoded in any industry. To be competitive, businesses must now go to consumers in the ways and places consumers prefer to find them.

It is no longer optional to have a strong, active presence where your clients and future clients already hang out: on the web, on Twitter, on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media venues. Successful businesses and thriving industries are delivering information via all the types of technology consumers are using in their daily lives.

As Wendy Poe, Chief Customer Officer for Bluegreen Corporation explains, “I really think that future communications and reservations activities for our owners will be heavily transacted on mobile applications and especially tablets. As the costs for smart phones, IPADS, digital readers and tablets become more affordable, and we all get more comfortable living in a “highly connected” world, it will no longer be necessary to plan your vacations over the phone or even on a computer – you will be able to do it “on the go” from one vacation to the next!”

Great comment and great vision from Bluegreen Corporation, and a very positive step forward in serving the vacation ownership needs of today’s (and tomorrow’s) consumer.