Do Timeshare Owners Represent the Typical Tourist?

Demands for high quality and good prices are up among travelers.

According to the World Travel Trends Report 2006/07, today’s vacationer has less time to vacation, but higher standards for the few vacation days he or she can enjoy. In an article that appeared on January 26, 2007, on the San Francisco based www.hotelexecutive.com “more people are ‘cash-rich’ and ‘time-poor’ today.”

The World Travel Report findings were based on information gathered at the Pisa Forum, an informational symposium organized by IPK International. While Americans are recognized internationally as the group allotting the fewest days annually to leisure and holiday, the trend for travelers to be ‘time poor’ was amazingly consistent across North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific countries.

The profile of today’s leisure traveler includes more singles, more grandparents traveling with their grandchildren, more women and more extended family groups than in previous years. At the same time that leisure travelers are demanding better services and a higher quality of accommodations at hotels and timeshare vacation resorts, they are also vacation shopping by price. Good deals were one of the top considerations for travelers and ranked higher than the concern over availability of a specific destination.

Not only are travelers looking for quality at the right price in their lodging, they are also seeking to enhance the quality of their “vacation experience”. This is reflected in a desire to stay in resorts that are environmentally friendly (green), offer spas and health clubs, educational trips and activities, and an opportunity to interact with the local people and experience area culture.

And who are we as vacationers listening to when it comes to where we stay? Only 38 percent of Americas read travel reviews written by professionals, while 67 percent read hotel reviews written by other travelers, and obviously, 5 percent rely on both sources.

So what do you think, timeshare owners and timeshare renters? Does this sound like you?

One thing is certain, as hoteliers and resort management make adjustments and improvements to better meet the needs of the vacation traveler, you can be sure that these same improvements will be showing up in the timeshare and vacation ownership industry as well.