Central Florida Investments, Inc, the corporate owners of Westgate timeshares, has closed its Westgate Houston Preview Gallery and laid off all of the 106 workers employed there.

The property was located at 5177 Richmond Avenue and included a full-size model timeshare complete with living room and fully equipped kitchen. It originally opened in 2004 and was the first offsite timeshare sales center outside Orlando.

Reportedly, CFI filed documents with the Texas Workforce Commission saying that the company had, “experienced an unforeseen business emergency brought on by the collapse of the credit markets. Westgate has been unable to access its regular and customary borrowing sources and, as a result, does not presently have the cash flow to support its operations in their current form without these staff reductions.”

The layoffs in Houston follow previous announcements of employee layoffs at other Westgate timeshare locations. The blog posts listed below provide further information about cutbacks and financial concerns at Westgate timeshare.

• The Other Side to the Westgate Timeshare Lawsuit Story
• More Bad News for Westgate Timeshares, Hit with $1 Million Judgment
• Bluegreen Timeshares and Westgate Timeshare Mogul Settle Pending Lawsuit
• Hotels, Timeshares, and the Bailout

According to news in the Orlando Sentinel and other sources, the Disney Vacation Club has signed a multi-year contract with Group RCI, a timeshare exchange company.

Effective, January 1, 2009, RCI will be the exclusive exchange provider for Disney Vacation Club timeshare members. Under the terms of the new agreement, timeshare owners at Disney Vacation Club will be able to use their Disney Vacation Club timeshare points to book timeshare at RCI resorts all over the world.

Exchanging Disney timeshare points through RCI will enable Disney owners to book timeshare at non-Disney resorts. At the same time, the more than 3.6 million members of RCI timeshare exchange will now be able to exchange other timeshare for stays at the Disney Vacation Club.

A spokesperson for Disney timeshare, which is based in Celebration, Florida, says the decision to switch Disney’s exchange affiliation from Interval International to RCI exchange will provide Disney timeshare members with “‘a significantly broader range of resort experiences,’ including access to destinations across six continents and 25 countries.”

Disney believes they will be able to attract more people to buy timeshare at the Disney resorts, by being able to offer access to a wider array of timeshare exchange.

The Timeshare Authority reported yesterday that Sandy Grey, chairman of the Timeshare Consumers’ Association, has been found guilty by a London court of libeling others in the timeshare industry through his website, Crimeshare.

According to the OTE e-News (Organisation for Timeshare in Europe), “Alexander ‘Sandy’ Grey was ordered to pay substantial costs of the legal action, brought by Bob Trotta, founder and chairman of Resort Properties. Mr. Justice Eady ordered that Grey pay Mr. Trotta’s costs in proving his responsibility for publication with £25,000 to be paid within 21 days of the court judgement, made on 28th October.”

Trotta, developer of several timeshare resorts in Tenerife, and other timeshare industry interests in Malta and Italy, is credited with diligently pursuing the facts necessary to expose Grey. The courts described Trotta’s efforts as a “painstaking exercise” to collate substantial witness and expert evidence in order to reveal the truth about Grey. In September 2007, a court in Spain, determined that an earlier version of Crimeshare had also made an unlawful attack on Bob Trotta’s reputation.

Persons who worked with Grey stated that overall, he represented himself as a friend of the consumer, all the while tearing down his competitors in order to enhance his own credibility within the timeshare industry.

When you need reliable information about timeshares, timeshare resales, and timeshare rentals, turn to the vacation ownership experts at Sell My Timeshare NOW.

In Saturday’s The Timeshare Authority, we quoted Sandy Grey as a critic of the new timeshare regulations recently put in place by the European Union. Grey, essentially, was saying that the new timeshare laws are not yet tough enough to protect tourists from themselves. His statement appeared to say less about the laws and more about his lack of confidence in the consumer’s ability to make sound decisions.

Timeshare Industry Critic in Hot Water

The November 24 edition of the OTE e-News (Organisation for Timeshare in Europe) reported that the High Court in London has ruled that Sandy Grey, chairman of the Timeshare Consumers’ Association (TCA), is the man behind Crimeshare, a website found guilty of libeling many reputable individuals and businesses affiliated with the timeshare industry. According to eNews, “From the High Court judgement, it now appears that for a number of years Grey has been responsible for the publication of a web site that contained serious and defamatory allegations about many of the leading brands in the European timeshare industry.”

The OTE’s newsletter went on to explain that the Crimeshare website appeared under five domain names, and included personal attacks against both employees of and the directors of timeshare companies. Additionally, the website published blacklists that included reputable timeshare businesses. Among the 200 or so companies appearing on Crimeshare’s blacklist have been the American Resort Development Association (ARDA); Resort Condominiums International (RCI); and the Organisation for Timeshare in Europe (OTE).

In tomorrow’s The Timeshare Authority, we will look at the role Bob Trotta, well-known pioneer of the timeshare industry in Europe, played in bringing the case against Grey. And remember, to share your timeshare news and talk with other timeshare owners, visit The Timeshare Forum at Sell My Timeshare NOW.