The facts speak for themselves. The following statistics are based on research from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) and relate to the global tourism industry, which includes hotels, timeshare, travel, and all services related to tourism and hospitality.

• One American job is created for every 35 international visitors to the US.
• Impact of travel and tourism on the global gross domestic product (GDP) is forecast to rise by 4.2 percent annually to US $9.226 trillion by 2021.
• Visitor exports—that’s the amount visitors spend in a given foreign country—will increase by 6.6 percent annually through 2021, rising to US $1.789 billion by 2021.
• In New York City alone, Brazilians tourists spent a total of $1.63 billion in 2011. Italians tourists spent $1.1 billion; Canadian tourists spent $1.27 billion and visitors to the Big Apple from the United Kingdom spent $1.42 billion. (Source: NYC & Co., the city’s tourism board.)
• Globally, over the next ten years, tourism is projected to add an additional 69 million net jobs to the world’s employment picture.

Your next timeshare vacation or holiday is good for your mental and physical well-being. It’s good for your employer because you return to work rejuvenated and more productive. Vacations and holidays are good for building bonds and strengthening relationships among those who share the experience. And tourism and travel are powerful tools for helping to restore the global economic picture.

Florida International University has announced that its hospitality school has been named the Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, in honor of Harvey R. Chaplin and the Chaplain family. (See: http://hospitality.fiu.edu/)

Harvey R. Chaplin is the chair and CEO of Southern Wine & Spirits of America, a company known by many for hosting the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival. Southern Wine & Spirits of America, Inc. is the nation’s largest wine and spirits distributor and broker with operations in 35 markets. Included at FIU’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management  is the Southern Wine & Spirits Beverage Management Center, a 4,500 square-foot facility, built in 1999, that affords the latest technology for beverage tasting and analysis. The Center serves the needs of both FIU students and industry professionals including winemakers and distillers.

The Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management provides top rated learning opportunities for students pursuing careers in the hotel, timeshare, and food service industries, and all aspects of tourism. FIU’s School of Hospitality and Tourism is particularly distinguished by its campus locations, expert faculty, and fast-track career advantages in the international areas of the tourism industry. The Marriott Tianjin China Program, established in 2006, is FIU’s largest international program, with a capacity for up to 2,000 students.

FIU is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools(SACS). The Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management offers a number of Bachelors and Masters degree programs as well as non-degree certifications.

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.

Each year the women of WIN sponsor a very important charity auction. WIN is a non-profit organization within ARDA whose membership includes women, and those who mentor, inspire and support women, in the vacation and timeshare industry.

WIN auctions provide a time to support charities that benefit the health, education and welfare of women and children in need, but also to take advantage of great deals on that include travel, sports, jewelry, golf gear and much more.

You can get involved in the auction by visiting WIN’s Bidding for Good webpages and registering to be part of this important cause. But you have to hurry!

Not only are the bids racking up fast for many items, but at 10 PM, December 11, 2011, all bidding stops.

For 2012, WIN’s 3rd  Annual Auction supports: Girls, Inc.; Christel House; Send Me On Vacation; Quest To Walk; Deliver The Dream; The Children’s TherAplay Foundation; and The Children’s TherAplay Foundation.

Click here to learn more about WIN, and to visit their website and here to visit the ARDA website.

This week, we announced that at Sell My Timeshare NOW and Timeshare Broker Services, we are hosting a Holiday Food Drive for the New Hampshire Food Bank. Our partner in this food drive is Cocheco PrintWorks.

Although this food drive is targeting the Dover, New Hampshire area for drop offs of canned goods and non-perishable foods, you can also get involved in other ways. Here are some facts about the food drive and about NH Food Bank that will tell you more about this effort and about why it is so needed:

• New Hampshire has one of the lowest poverty levels in the US but ranks #7 in the number of homeless children
• New Hampshire Food Bank is a program of New Hampshire Catholic Charities. So far this year, it has distributed more than 7 million pounds of food through a statewide network of approved agencies. Distribution is made to over 400 New Hampshire senior citizen homes, food pantries, shelters, day care centers and soup kitchens and more than 130,000 adults and children have been served.
• Checks are also accepted. Please make them payable to: NH Food Bank.
• You can make your donations through Thursday, December 22, 2011.
• Our drop-off location is 383 Central Avenue, Suite 260, Dover, NH 03820, which are the offices of Sell My Timeshare NOW and Timeshare Broker Services. We are located on the second floor of the Cochero Falls Millworks and you may park on the street or in the guest parking spaces in front of the building and use the entrance facing TD Bank.

You can learn more about this important effort at:

http://www.sellmytimesharenow.com/media/2011-holiday-food-drive/

We also invite you to read our most recent media release here:

http://news.hospitality-1st.com/SellMyTimeshareNOW-120811.html

The needs are great and the stories are endless.

This is a tough year for many people. Families—right here in our own communities—are dealing with hunger. Mothers and fathers are putting their children to bed at night knowing that those children have not eaten adequate or nutritious food. Senior citizens are choosing whether to buy medication they need or put groceries in their pantry. And countless others are making painful decisions in which housing, food, electricity and other basic needs compete for the same limited dollars.

Almost everyone has been challenged by the tight economy in recent years. But if you can share, even just a little, we invite you to help us support the New Hampshire Food Bank. Sell My Timeshare NOW and Timeshare Broker Services, along with Cocheco PrintWorks, are hosting a 2011 Holiday Food Drive.

Sell My Timeshare NOW and Timeshare Broker Services Food Drive

Now through Thursday, December 22, 2011, we’re collecting donations of canned goods and other non-perishable food items at our Dover, NH offices at: 383 Central Avenue, Suite 260 in downtown Dover.

You can learn more about this food drive by visiting our website at: http://www.sellmytimesharenow.com/media/2011-holiday-food-drive/

And you can learn more about the New Hampshire Food Bank at: www.nhfoodbank.org/

Each year the NH Food Bank collects over 7 million pounds of food and facilitates its distribution to more than 400 New Hampshire food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, day care centers and senior citizen homes. By their efforts, some 130,000 adults and children in need are served.

We also encourage you to visit, and “Like” both the NH Food Bank and Sell My Timeshare NOW on Facebook. You’ll find us at:

https://www.facebook.com/SellMyTimeshareNOW

and the NH Food Bank at: https://www.facebook.com/nhfoodbank

The holidays typically leave everyone busy and often overwhelmed, but there are a few smart financial moves that can really benefit you if you find time and take care of them now. And for some timeshare owners, selling your timeshare may be one of them.

Must-Dos before 2012 rolls around:

1. Contribute as much as permitted to your retirement account. You only have until the last day of the year to contribute to your 401(k) through your workplace. Yes, you can add to your IRA or ROTH IRA up until April each year, but for your workplace 401(k), the deadline is December 31. Ask your HR department how much you have already contributed this year. For workers under age 50, the maximum is $16,500 and for those over, it is $22,000. If you are under these caps, try to raise your contributions between now and New Year’s Eve to realize the best tax savings for 2011.

2. Pay in advance. If you have bills that are partially or wholly tax deductible and you can, pay them before December 31 to gain the tax deduction in the current year. Examples of bills that may be tax deductible include the interest portion of your home mortgage, college tuition, or expenses you can claim as business deductions.

3. Consider selling your timeshare. It’s likely that as a timeshare owner, you have recently received the bill for your annual dues on your timeshare or vacation club membership. For most people, this bill averages about $750. But if you are not using your timeshare, this may be one expenditure you can save in the future by selling your timeshare in 2012. No, you won’t make back what you paid for it, but you will eliminate what it costs you going forward. And while not all timeshares are easy to sell, many timeshares resell quite well. Ask the timeshare resale specialists at Timeshare Broker Services to help you. It will cost you nothing upfront, and you’ll be under no obligation. Call 877-884-9577 to learn more.

4. Review your utilities and services. One call to your telephone, cable, satellite or other service provider can save you money every month. Plans and service options change constantly and many companies that provide services you regularly use have ways to save you money you may not be benefitting from now. Ask companies to look at your services and see how they can help you. In some cases this can be in the form of bundling services in order to save money, a loyalty discount or credit, adding features at no cost to you, discontinuing features for which you are paying but not using, or even a free home energy audit that puts you in a better position to save.

5. Share. Now is the ideal time to make charitable donations. Studies show that sharing generously with others increases your personal feelings of contentment and satisfaction, activating the same “happiness” areas of the brain as is triggered by eating a good meal. Publication 78, Cumulative List of Organizations described in Section 170(c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, provides you the full list of charities to which your donations are tax deductible.

And always, when exploring ways to save on your state or federal income taxes, be sure to consult you CPA, tax attorney or other tax expert.

Big news yesterday when the American Resort Development Association (ARDA) and the Resort Development Organisation (RDO) announced their new marketing alliance.

Under this new cooperative working alliance, ARDA and RDO will share industry information and will work collectively on issues of common concern for the purpose of advancing the growth of the timeshare industry worldwide, the interests of each of two group’s members and the consumer who are served by the groups.

Howard Nusbaum, president and CEO of ARDA, explains, “Establishing a better exchange of information with RDO will bring value to our members who have resorts around the world and to owners who are increasingly looking to destinations abroad for their timeshare vacations,”

Richard McIntosh, chairman of RDO, says, “The underlying basis for the working relationship between RDO and ARDA is to establish in the eyes of our respective memberships, a stronger partnership between the two organizations, whilst both retain their full autonomy and financial independence.”

ARDA and RDO Will Share with Relevant and Useful Information

As a result of the agreement, ARDA and RDO will:

Explore opportunities for both organizations to share industry information with its respective developer communities and prospective travelers.

Cooperatively identify opportunities at both organizations’ upcoming international-themed conventions—ARDA World and RDO 3—to reach new members and address relevant topics.

Jointly approach jurisdictions that do not yet have timeshare legislation or an effective trade association, and joint marketing opportunities.

To learn more about ARDA, visit www. arda.org and to find out more about the RDO, visit www.rdo.org

Note from The Timeshare Authority blog: While the following news item is of potential interest to New England residents and those who enjoy ski vacations in the Nutmeg Alps of Connecticut, it is also of broader interest because it indicates one of the many ways that timeshares can strengthen the economy and benefit communities.

According to the East Hampton-Portland Patch, the Town of Middlefield, Connecticut, seems to have lost the interest of at least one investor who was considering Powder Ridge ski area—that is, unless the deal includes a timeshare real estate component.

Rick Sabatino, a former consultant to Alpine Ridge LLC, and his business partner Dave Perry, have been trying to determine if the current agreement between Middlefield and Alpine would permit the development of timeshare units at Powder Ridge.

Sabatino was quoted as saying, “The investor would take another look at it if there were timeshares available.”

The Town’s First Selectman, Jon Brayshaw, has reportedly expressed concern over the Town appearing to work exclusively with any one group who might be expressing interest in the property, saying that there are, “other people in the mix.”

A visit to the Powder Ridge Ski Area website found the following message:

The Powder Ridge Ski Area also includes the following email address as its contact information for anyone with questions:  admin@powderridgect.com

NOTE: This ski area should not be confused with the popular Utah ski destination, also called Powder Ridge. Powder Ridge Village Timeshare (Utah)

35 is a good age to be … wise from seeing the world and gaining experience yet enthusiastic with the vibrancy of youth.

Interval International turned 35 this year and there’s no doubt about this timeshare industry leader’s seasoned expertise or its vitality. Today Interval International has a timeshare exchange network that includes some 2600 timeshares resorts in more than 75 countries worldwide. Approximately 2 million families are part of Interval International through its membership programs.

As a leader in timeshare exchange, Interval International keeps changing and expanding, taking timeshare exchange to the next level with the Interval Platinum program and the Club Interval Gold program. In today’s post and again in tomorrow’s, The Timeshare Authority blog will look at each of these two timeshare exchange membership levels and what they can mean to your timeshare ownership.

Club Interval Gold Timeshare Points Program

Club Interval Gold was designed for timeshare owners who desire timeshare exchange and who own either fixed or floating week timeshare. This flexible program, launched this past spring,  gives Interval International members the choice to opt-in or opt-out on a year by year basis and combines the benefits of Interval International and Interval Gold while affording those who choose it, much flexibility in vacation ownership exchange.

But as much as Club Interval Gold benefits the owner/members themselves, it was actually designed with developers in mind. Currently, 16 resort developers, who represent 25 different timeshare resorts, are selling Club Interval Gold.

David Gilbert, executive vice president of resort sales and marketing for Interval explains, “In an evolving marketplace, clients are looking for cost-effective new products they can utilize to leverage their existing owner base and Club Interval Gold meets both of those criteria. It allows them to sell a flexible-use program without relinquishing control of their most valuable assets, their owner bases and inventory. … We designed and implemented Club Interval Gold so that our resort clients could offer their owners the best of both worlds. Members can still exchange in the traditional way for vacations of similar value, or convert to points and redeem them for a variety of alternatives.”

Benefits for Club Interval Gold Timeshare Members

Club Interval Gold members have the option to:

• Use their Interval member program points to exchange within Interval’s network of some 2600 resorts (not just resorts participating in Club Interval Gold)
• Combine deposits to increase the points balance and trade up to larger units or more in-demand seasons
• Search for and confirm as many stays and as many short stays as their points permit through ShortStay Exchange
• Select Interval Options to apply toward the purchase of a cruise, spa or golf holiday
• Take advantage of Getaway discounts; $25 off the price of all Getaway vacation rentals
• Enjoy VIP Concierge 24/7 personal assistance for purchasing concert tickets, making dinner reservations, tee times, etc
• Benefit from hotel, dining, and leisure discounts along with access to more than 90,000 premium discounts from Entertainment^® at IntervalWorld.com
• Enjoy complimentary membership in the Hertz #1 Club Gold, receiving expedited car rentals at more than 1000 locations in 23 countries
• Take advantage of Interval Travel^® for airline tickets and rates often unavailable to the public
• Receive member publications including the Interval International Resort Directory , Interval World^®magazine, and Go IntervalWorld.com newsletter

Be sure to check-in here on The Timeshare Authority blog tomorrow when we look at Interval Platinum from Interval International. You can also learn more by visiting http://www.intervalworld.com/web/my/home