ILX Resorts Inc., a developer and operator of timeshares in the Western part of the US, has released their corporate financial report showing a net loss for the third quarter. Currently ILX timeshares include locations in Arizona, Indiana, Colorado, and San Carlos, Mexico. The company also owns land in Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point), Mexico and Sedona, Arizona, which are in the final planning stages for timeshare development. ILX has acquired, and continues to acquire, inventory at the Carriage House in Las Vegas and at the Scottsdale Camelback Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona through Premiere Vacation Club.

According to the ILX Resorts report, “Third quarter results include the write off of consumer notes receivable in excess of 90 days delinquent and the increase in the allowance for doubtful accounts as a percentage of performing notes receivable and performing notes sold with recourse to reflect a reduction in expectations of collectability of delinquent and performing loans based on recent economic, financial and credit conditions … Revenue from operations exclusive of the increased allowance and write off for the three months ended September 30, 2008 was $10.4 million as compared to $12.1 million for the comparable period in 2007.”

It’s Still a Good Time to Sell Timeshare

This is just one more timeshare developer story in a downturn economy. Surprisingly, some of today’s worst economic news may be the fact that the price of consumer goods have dropped. Decline in the core index (goods other than fuel and food) signals a deflationary economy. While a downturn in the price of goods seems, on the surface, to be positive, deflation can actually make matters worse, because it counters the impact of Federal cuts of the interest rate and it can make debts harder to pay off.

If you want to sell timeshare or rent timeshare, remember that despite the tough US market, you can advertise your timeshare resale or timeshare rental in an active and interested global marketplace by going to www.sellmytimesharenow.com

Part II in a two-part series.

In Saturday’s The Timeshare Authority blog, we profiled the women behind WIN, a new professional organization for Women in the Industry that supports and cultivates women as the leaders of tomorrow in the vacation industry.

We had the opportunity to interview several members of WIN’s Board of Directors, and their comments give you a great insight into the current and future role of their organization.

Q. Who founded Women in the Industry (WIN) and when did you launch?

A. Cathy Backus and Lani Kane-Hanan founded WIN. (See Saturday’s The Timeshare Authority to learn more about Backus and Kane-Hanan). Our first official meeting was held at last year’s spring ARDA convention. Cathy Backus had been working on Women in Timesharing; ARDA’s Lani Kane-Hanan had been working on Women in the Industry. They were in concert so they joined forces to found WIN-a stronger organization.

Q. What are WIN’s objectives and goals?

A. WIN is a non-profit group that advocates, educates, and connects women in the vacation industry. The primary purpose of WIN is to foster the growth of women by recognizing their accomplishments and creating a strong networking environment. In addition to providing a forum for women in the vacation industry to unite and leverage best practices, WIN will also support industry research particularly as it pertains to women.

Q. Who benefits from joining WIN and how?

A. Both individuals and corporations benefit; there is a place in WIN for women and also for men who support women. Individual members of WIN will receive newsletters, educational sessions and information, networking opportunities and access to the membership directory. Corporate memberships receive a number of other benefits as well as their membership serving to show their commitment to support the causes of this not-for-profit group.

Q. What do you hope to see WIN accomplish in the next year? The next 5 years?

A. WIN is a grassroots, volunteer-based organization. What we hope to accomplish in the next few years is to complete the foundation of our organization. We have selected our Advisory Board and with their help, we will grow the member base, finalize local and regional chapters, hold several local and national networking sessions, launch our website and job search tool, and hold educational sessions for women and those who support women in our industry.

Q. What do you see as the greatest challenges the timeshare and vacation ownership industry currently faces?

A. Developing a strong core of new blood, fresh energy, and skilled professionals. Women bring this to the table.

Q. What do you see as the greatest challenges for women working in the timeshare /vacation ownership industry?

A. The industry has long been dominated by men, but this is evolving. Women are in a unique position to understand their fellow women’s needs and to support and nurture professionalism. With women in leadership positions, women’s desires to improve their lifestyle, support their families, and improve their community will be better met.

Wise words.

Women drive many of the buying decisions in the timeshare sales and timeshare resales industry. It makes a great deal of sense to build and grow the timeshare industry to better match the owner base. If you are part of the timeshare and vacation ownership industry in any way, look into what WIN has to offer you and what you have to offer WIN. The organization already includes individuals, resorts, vacation clubs, recreational real estate developers, and funding and lending institutions. The community of support services to the timeshare industry is also getting involved in WIN, including architects, legal advisors, and suppliers.

If you want to learn more about WIN and their vision, contact them at 760-755-0356, or visit www.WomenInTheIndustry.com

Part I in a two-part series.

WIN, which stands for Women in the Industry, is a unique new organization that recognizes just how much talented, professional women can (and do) mean to the timeshare industry. The mission of this non-profit group includes advocating, educating, and connecting women in the vacation ownership industry.

As Georgi Bohrod, Cathy Backus, and Lani Kane-Hanan, (WIN’s founders and BOD) explain, the primary purpose of WIN is to foster the growth of women by recognizing their accomplishments and creating a strong networking environment. In addition to providing a forum for women in the timeshare and vacation industry to unite and leverage best practices, WIN will also support industry research particularly as it pertains to women.

Last week I had the opportunity to talk with some of the women behind WIN; I know you would be interested in what they have to say. For background, here is a profile of the seven founding members and volunteer Board of Directors of WIN. These short bios don’t begin to do justice to the depth and breadth of professional experience these industry leaders have in a diversity of areas from leisure, to marketing, to recreation, to hotels and hospitality, and of course, timeshare.

• Cathy Backus’ career includes eight years with TWA; owner/operator of Youth Explorers; Director of US Sales for Club Med; and her current position as Global Sales Director with CSA Travel Protection.
• Georgi Bohrod is the owner of GBG & Associates Inc., and has more than two decades of shared ownership industry experience. She is a designated Registered Resort Professional; writer; and public relations and marketing professional; and past director of marketing and public relations for Resort Communications.
• Melanie Gring is the vice president marketing for Global Connections. Prior to acquisition by Global, Melanie was the managing partner of Leisuretainment.com, LLC. She has more than 35 years of experience in the vacation ownership industry; 26 years with Fairfield Resorts; was past president of Cooperative Association of Resort Exchangers (CARE) and currently serves on the Board of Directors of CARE.
• Lani Kane-Hanan, RRP, is the senior vice president of Marriott Vacation Club International (MVCI). Lani is a third generation hotelier with over 20 years in the hospitality industry. She is responsible for all MVCI’s business planning, inventory and revenue management, pricing, and product innovation activities.
• Lisa Jackson is the vice president of strategic business development at International Cruise & Excursions, Inc. (ICE) and is the past regional sales manager for Cunard Line. Lisa manages all resort business development at ICE, seeking out new partners and ensuring that those currently using the ICE programs are fully realizing the benefits.
• Eliana Jones has worked with timeshare developers in Mexico and USA, including Shell timeshare Corporation, Palace Resorts Corporation, Solaris Resorts, and Sunset Group. Eliana is a partner of Zunny Trails Company, an international marketing and destination management company offering lead generation solutions to timeshare resorts across the border.
• Karen Knight, CTSM brings over 20 years of experience in the vacation industry to WIN. She is the past director of marketing for San Francisco Recreation and Park Department; was the grand opening director of Legoland California; past manager of university conference programs for both Cal Poly and Santa Clara Universities and has marketed and managed several boutique hotels in the San Francisco Bay area.

These are seven dynamic, timeshare industry leaders, who have identified both a need and an opportunity. You will be interested in what they have to say about timesharing, women, WIN, and the future of the industry; in the interview I’ll post on Monday’s The Timeshare Authority blog.

Grand Timber Lodge Timeshare Resort is so much more than a timeshare vacation destination; it is a life style. And while owning and maintaining a year-round ski retreat in Breckenridge, Colorado may not be within your budget, owning a week or two of timeshare at Grand Timber Lodge can be very affordable, especially if you take advantage of reasonably priced timeshare resales.

Grand Timber Lodge timeshare is HOT 100 list timeshare property number 54 at Sell My Timeshare NOW. Of course timeshare owners at Grand Timber Lodge love the resort because of its ski-in and ski-out convenience. But there is also the Grand Victorian Day Spa, the swimming pools, hot tubs, athletic center, children’s playground and the arcade to love as well.

While many timeshare resorts offer excellent retreats for you and your family, the Grand Timber Lodge has units large enough to accommodate family groups of all sizes or you and your 9 best friends.

Timeshare Units to Accommodate Up to 10 People

The Grand Timber Lodge timeshare resort offers studio timeshare units, 2-room suites with kitchenettes, and one, two, and three-bedroom timeshare condos. The largest condos at the Grand Timber Lodge are 1,500 square feet and designed to accommodate up to 10 people. They include fully equipped kitchens with granite countertops, a washer and dryer, a private deck, gas fireplace, and complete dining service for 10 people. These timeshare units have 3 full bathrooms, (one with a jetted bathtub) and an entertainment center in the living area.

But you don’t necessarily have to go for the largest timeshare to enjoy luxury and comfort in a Grand Timber Lodge timeshare. Even the 2-room suites with kitchenettes are designed to sleep up to 6 people, and include one king size bed, 1 queen size bed, and 1 sleeper sofa. The kitchenette includes a mini fridge, a mini dishwasher, a microwave oven and a two-burner stove. These timeshare units also include an entertainment center and 2 full bathrooms.

If you are interesting in learning more about becoming a vacation property owner, paying for only the days and nights you schedule to enjoy at the Grand Timber Lodge timeshare, visit Sell My Timeshare NOW and learn more about the timeshare resales and timeshare rentals waiting for you.

Already thinking about fresh powder on the slopes at Breckenridge? Follow this link to check the Breckenridge snow report.

On September 9, the American Resort Development Association (ARDA) launched a new website designed to benefit consumers, vacationers, timeshare owners, and everyone who needs a little more vacation time worked into his life.

VacationBetter.org is an online resource created to help you learn more about vacation ownership and educate you on ways to travel better … vacation better … and in general enjoy relaxation and recreation more in your life.

Howard Nusbaum, ARDA president and CEO was quoted in the association’s official press release as saying, “People love to vacation, but don’t always understand that there are great options like timeshare available to them.”

Recognizing that as a society we are over worked and under vacationed, this excellent new website seeks to help people “vacation better.” As satisfied timeshare owners already know, timeshare can afford you some of the easiest solutions out there for planning and enjoying a great vacation. The VacationBetter website tells us that timeshare industry research shows the top stress points related to a vacation are:

1. Planning it.
2. Agreeing on destination.
3. Cost.
4. Having activities to suit all.
5. Uncertainty of what the room will be like.

But for timeshare owners, these 5 problems all go away because timeshare eliminates the stress of planning, gives you great flexibility in your choice of destination, lets you keep the cost of vacation accommodations under control, and offers luxurious resorts that are loaded with amenities to suit every member of the family.

Timeshare … it really is your vacation better solution.

J.W. “Bill” Marriott, Jr. chairman and chief executive officer of Marriott hotels and Marriott timeshare, has joined other leaders in the travel, hotel, and timeshare resort industries in asking Congress and the Administration to build a bipartisan alliance and address the growing US energy crisis.

In an open letter to the President, Senators, and Representatives, tourism industry spokespeople called on lawmakers to stay in Washington DC throughout the summer in order to develop a comprehensive national energy policy.

MarketWatch quoted Bill Marriott as saying that the family budgets of Americans are being squeezed by higher gas prices at the pump and more expensive airline seats. Marriott pointed out that flights are being cut and that nine small or mid-sized air carriers have ceased operations in the past year alone creating a “huge ripple effect affecting the entire travel industry,” including hotels, car rentals companies, cruise lines, amusement parks, national parks, taxis, restaurants, travel agents, shops, and other types of retailers or travel related services.

As Bill Marriott, the patriarchal head of Marriott hotels and Marriott timeshares says of the lawmakers, “They shouldn’t be going home in August while travelers in America are finding it harder and harder to go anywhere.”

…Good point, why should your elected officials be on holiday during August when you can’t afford to be?

This week, Sol Meliá Vacation Club and Timeshare Resort announced the realization of a business milestone. The timeshare company developed three properties in 2004, and today the internationally branded club has 13 international locations.

As part of Spain-based Sol Meliá Hotels and Resorts, the vacation club has properties in Mexico, Europe, the Caribbean, and Central America, with more than 20,000 members worldwide. Alain Grangé, Chief Executive of Sol Meliá Vacation Club and Leisure Real Estate Division, says, “We have been profitable since our first quarter of business from vacation club sales, member and network operations, rental and Club portfolio.”

The vacation club and timeshare credits its success in part to the fact that its projects are fully integrated with those of the company’s hotel and resort divisions. The timeshare company feels this creates a beneficial synergy of marketing, sales, products, operations, financial strength, and customer loyalty.

But here is the single most important reason the company gave for its success and rapid growth. Alain Grangé described loyalty as a two-way street and said, “We couldn’t expect our customers to be loyal to us if we weren’t loyal to them first.”

Applause! The word loyalty is thrown about a lot in the business world, but it is rarely used to talk about a company being loyal to its customers. Loyalty is all too often forgotten in business today, and the few companies that demonstrate it deserve to profit because of it.

You can read the Sol Meliá Vacation Club and Timeshare press release here.

And you can learn more about the opportunity to become a member of Sol Meliá Vacation Club and Timeshare. Go to Sell My Timeshare NOW and look for the outstanding opportunities in Sol Meliá Vacation Club and Timeshare resales and timeshare rentals.

• Sol Melia Vacation Club at Gran Melia Puerto Rico
• Sol Melia Vacation Club Dominican Republic

You gotta love Bono.

Bono (aka Paul David Hewson) is the lead singer for the rock bank U2 and is almost as well known as a political activist, campaigner for human rights, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee as he is for his music. But you might not know that he is also in the hotel business.

Bono and fellow band member, The Edge, own the Clarence Hotel in Dublin. Recently the two hired world-renowned architect, Sir Norman Foster, to create a resort design that represents a Viking ship. But whether the idea floats or not remains to be seen.

While Dublin city officials don’t have a problem with Bono and The Edge pumping more than $240 million into the resort hotel project, some object to the fact that several surrounding historic buildings will be destroyed in the process.

Currently the hotel property, which the two musicians have owned since the early 1990’s, has only 49 guest rooms. The new proposal emphasizes that it will turn the hotel into a resort destination. Plans call for, “quadrupling the size of the building and transforming it into an eight-storey, 140-bedroom five-star hotel,” according to the website U2France. There is no mention of whether the resort will include timeshares or any other vacation ownership component.

Ireland Timeshare Resales and Ireland Timeshare Rentals

To learn more about Ireland timeshare resales and timeshare rentals, visit Sell My Timeshare NOW. And to help you get in the mood for planning a timeshare vacation this summer in Ireland, or any other dreamy location, listen to this YouTube video featuring the Corrs and Bono performing, “Summer Wine.”

State of Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon has filed a lawsuit in Taney County Circuit Court against Branson log Homes, a company which does business as Executive Timbers Resort and Golf Course. The lawsuit alleges that the southwest Missouri company used deceptive practices, fraud, and misrepresentation in the sale an advertisement of timeshare memberships, timeshare plans, and timeshare property.

Details of the Alleged Timeshare Fraud

According to the Attorney General’s Office, consumers who contacted them complained that the timeshare company:

• Failed to provide required notice to them of their right to cancel contracts.
• Failed to allow consumers to cancel their contracts within five days after they purchased a timeshare membership.
• Billed timeshare buyers for maintenance or upkeep fees on property they were trading in, after neglecting to inform consumers that they would be required to pay such fees.
• Did not reimburse consumers for maintenance fees after telling them those fees would be reimbursed.
• Promised that consumers who purchases a timeshare membership, plan, or property from them would receive certain benefits , but then didn’t make good on those promises, and
• Did not disclose the fact that it was already over $30,000 in debt to the travel club that it was using to provide travel club memberships to the consumers.

What To Do If You Are a Victim of a Timeshare Scam

The Missouri Attorney General’s investigation has revealed that most victims of this timeshare scam have lost between $7,000 and $17,000 each, but some people may have lost more. If you want more information about this problem, contact the Office of the Attorney General at cphillips@phillipsgarcia.com or 1-800-392-8222 (from within Missouri) or 573-751-3321 (outside Missouri).

If you believe you are a victim of timeshare fraud in another US state, contact that state’s office of Consumer Protection or the Attorney General. Another way to learn more about protecting yourself against timeshare fraud is to talk with other timeshare owners at online forums, such as Sell My Timeshare NOW’s Timeshare Owners Forum.

And to learn more about safe and cost effective ways to buy timeshare, visit the website for Sell My Timeshare NOW.

Let’s face it. Timeshare owners at Royal Oasis got a very bad deal. And unless the new owners (Harcourt Development) step up in a big way, or the courts are able to enforce actions against the previous development company, then nothing will ever make up for what the owners of timeshare weeks at Royal Oasis have lost in dollars and vacation time.

But as I wrote in the Timeshare Owners Blog last November 5, timeshare owners are not the only victims of the problems at Royal Oasis. Somewhere between 800 and 1000 people lost their livelihoods when Royal Oasis timeshare closed in 2004. While several million dollars in severance money has already been paid to some Royal Oasis timeshare company employees, other employees have yet to receive anything. According to the February 25 online edition of The Bahama Journal, the Bahamian government still needs to disperse nearly $600,000 in severance pay to past employees of the timeshare resort.

Minister of State Zhivargo Liang says, “There still are some of the (former) Royal Oasis workers who have complaints about either not having been paid or not being paid sufficiently, etc. Those people are being interviewed with a view to getting what the exact details are of their complaints. Following upon that, determinations are being made as to what ought to happen in respect to payment for them.”

Liang believes that the monies owed involve approximately 100 people who had to choose between agreeing to accept an amount of money they thought was incorrect or gambling that waiting it out would lead to further investigation and ultimately the receipt of the correct amount.

Timeshare Resorts Are More than Vacation Destinations

When you take a timeshare vacation at many of the high demand destinations, it may seem as if timeshare resorts are a dime a dozen. Lose your job at one, and there are plenty of other timeshare resorts where you can apply for work. But the truth is, timeshare resorts are a valuable part of a community’s economic structure. Lose even one, and the stability of that structure is threatened.

A timeshare resort employs anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand employees at most locations. For many of the employees, this income may be the sole source of livelihood for them or their families. When a timeshare resort closes, not only are thousands of employees impacted, but vendors, who supply goods and services to the property are hurt as well.

In the case of the Royal Oasis timeshare resort, located on the edge of the famous Bahamian International Bazaar, traffic at the street shops and restaurants dwindled, causing the permanent closing of many of these businesses. And then there’s the impact on the tax base. Most timeshare resorts mean tourist taxes and real estate or property taxes paid into a community. In the case of Royal Oasis timeshares, damage to the local economy included loss of casino taxes as well—a painfully large chunk of tax revenue that simply disappeared overnight.

You may love timeshare or hate it depending on your experience with in the past. But the bottom line remains: when a community loses a timeshare resort for any reason, everyone from owners to employees to the community itself is seriously hurt by the loss.

As you sit at your desk this Monday morning, here is a video from Grand Bahama Island that is sure to make you long for the warm sunshine and sugar sand beaches of a Bahamas timeshare vacation.