For a tropical storm that, as of the time I’m writing this, has yet to make it to full-blown hurricane status, Fay sure has created havoc in Florida, and clearly isn’t through yet. The only thing that isn’t clear about Fay is where she will make trouble next.

Tropical Storm Fay is responsible for at least 10 known deaths in the Caribbean, but none in the US as of this time. There has been one death indirectly blamed on the storm when a man died from carbon monoxide poisoning while testing his home generator as part of his pre-storm preparations. Additionally, a kite surfer was critically injured when storm winds slammed him first into the ground and then into a building. Neither this death nor this serious injury will be attributed to the Tropical Storm Fay. But this storm is far from finished with Florida.

Fay first made landfall along the southern tip of the Florida Keys on Monday, then veered out into the Gulf of Mexico. On Tuesday, Fay made her second Florida landfall near Naples, still maintaining as a tropical storm, despite spending time over warm open waters, which typically causes a storm to strengthen. Fay then slowly moved northeast across the state, dumping massive amounts of rain. Stalling out over Melbourne and Cape Canaveral, Fay has/and is setting rainfall records, with some areas anticipated to receive 30 or more inches of wet stuff. So over the next two days The Timeshare Authority will look at what you should know if you own Florida timeshare, or have a Florida timeshare vacation planned…

Florida Timeshares in South Florida, Key West Timeshare, and Miami Timeshare

Florida timeshare in most of south Florida, including Key West timeshare and Miami timeshare, had a few days of wind and rain, but experienced no significant damages. Tourists and non-residents were asked to leave the Keys, as it was impossible to predict how much wind and flooding Fay would cause. Approximately 25,000 tourists heeded the warning and headed north, according to officials. If you have Florida timeshare in the southern part of the state, on either coast, it is undamaged and ready for your next visit.

Air traffic in and out of Fort Myers, Miami, and Fort Lauderdale was impacted on Monday and Tuesday. If you had air travel booked into any of these airports, and changed it because of the weather, contact your airlines immediately, as most have waived the change fees for flights during this period. Typically airlines honoring the waived fees will only do so if you ask them about this at the time of the change or immediately afterward.

Okay, that’s the good news about Florida timeshare, including Key West timeshare and Miami timeshare. Tomorrow’s The Timeshare Authority will look at how Tropical Storm Fay is changing vacation plans in the rest of the Sunshine State.

Yesterday Inc. Magazine announced their Inc. 5000 list, and SellMyTimeshareNOW.com is proud to be part of this very special, business elite. Until last year, Inc. published their highly respected Inc. 500 list, but starting in 2007, they expanded the list to include the 5000 fastest growing, privately held businesses in America.

SellMyTimeshareNOW.com ranked in several categories on the 2008 Inc. 5000:

• Number 2 fastest growing business in the state of New Hampshire.
• Number 21 in the Top 100 Businesses in the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH metro area.
• Number 44 in the Top 100 Advertising & Marketing Companies in the US.
• Number 637 in the Top 5000 fastest growing businesses in the US, out of more than 7 million companies overall.

SellMyTimeshareNOW.com is Part of an Elite Group

Founded just 5 years ago, this marks the first year SellMyTimeshareNOW.com has been eligible for consideration for Inc.’s prestigious list. Since 2004, our business growth has been 520.9 percent, with revenues of $1.1 million in 2004, which grew to $7.0 million by 2007. At the time we were considered for the Inc. 5000 list, SellMyTimeshareNOW.com had 112 employees, having increased from our original 3 employees back when we first started. Our staff growth continues, and today we have over 130 people employed by our company.

In our Inc 5000 profile, they state that two reasons for our growth are the fact that we recognized there was previously no efficient way for timeshare owners to sell timeshare or for prospective timeshare buyers to buy or rent timeshare. They also identify that our consistently superb placement on Google and other search engines gets us over a million hits per month and leads to about $7 million in offers to buy or rent timeshare each week.

How our Timeshare Resales Company Made the Inc. 5000 List

In order to be considered for the 2008 Inc. 5000 list, a company must have had at least $200,000 in revenue in 2004, and $2 million in 2007. All companies recognized by Inc. are US based, privately held, independent, for profit companies, which are not subsidiaries or division of other companies, as of December 31, 2007.

An interesting note is that industries reporting the highest median revenue are the travel industry with $38.8 million, followed by financial services, logistics, government services, and energy. The top five largest industries ranked included the category SellMyTimeshareNOW.com falls into, which is Advertising & Marketing with 361 companies, while IT Services was the number one largest category with 579 companies.

What it Means to SellMyTimeshareNOW.com to be Honored by Inc. 5000

At a time when the US economy is shaky and the daily financial news looks bleak, SellMyTimeshareNOW.com is very proud to be part of the solution to getting this country back on solid financial footing. The companies that made the Inc. 5000 list report aggregate revenue of $185 billion and they have created more than 826,033 jobs since the companies were founded. It feels very good to all of us at SellMyTimeshareNOW.com to be part of the economic “good news”.

Our company started out as a vision that we first mapped out on a paper napkin, and with a tremendous amount of hard work and careful business planning, we have thrived and grown, despite the challenging economy. Our daily objective is to help timeshare owners sell or rent their timeshare easily and efficiently, while at the same time offering a vast inventory of timeshare resales and timeshare rentals to prospective buyers. When timeshare owners sell timeshare they no longer use, and a new family gains the pleasure of vacation ownership at an affordable price, we have done something pretty remarkable to make the lives of both the timeshare seller and the timeshare buyer a little better.

And the only thing that I can think of that is more exciting for SellMyTimeshareNOW.com than how far we’ve come in the past 5 years, is to think about what lies ahead for tomorrow.

Timeshare owners and timeshare renters at the Kwa Maritane Bush Lodge in the Pilanesberg (South Africa timeshares) were lucky to escape a disastrous fire without injury earlier this week. No lives were lost in the blaze but substantial damage was done, with many timeshare units destroyed because of the blaze, and guests losing most of the personal possessions they had in their timeshare units.

News 24 from Johannesburg, South Africa reported that guests escaped the early morning blaze with little more than the nightclothes they were wearing. One timeshare guest was quoted as saying, “My dad shouted so much that we thought there were lions in the house.” Another of the timeshare owners listed several personal traumas that she and her husband had experienced in recent months, including her own hijacking and her husband’s stroke as being reasons they had planned their timeshare vacation to relax at the Bush Lodge resort. Understandably, she described the timeshare resort fire as, “the last straw.”

The South African timeshare resort reported that they believed the fire to have started in the kitchen of the timeshare resort’s conference center, resulting from a short circuit. Kwa Maritane timeshare arranged for their guests to be transported to their sister resort, Bakubung. On the timeshare resort’s website, they have posted notice that they will be temporarily closed, but have given no information about when they may plan to reopen.

South Africa Timeshare Opportunities

Overall, timeshare in South Africa is booming, with resorts that range from safari land to beachside, to the golf and casino luxury of Sun City. SellMyTimeshareNOW.com offers you opportunities in timeshare resales and timeshare rentals at many of these exciting locations. And for US travelers, remember that your US dollar still spends quite well against the South African rand, making South Africa timeshares a destination where you can count on getting your money’s worth in both vacation enjoyment and value.

According to an article that was reprinted in HOTEL magazine and originally appeared in The New York Sun, occupancy rates in New York City are up. Isn’t it good to hear positive news about the US economy for a change?

We already knew that New York timeshares have been, like the timeshare industry in general, either holding their own or gaining, despite the sluggish economy. Many hoteliers have been leaning on the timeshare side of their businesses to keep them solid during these challenging and unpredictable times. But according to figures released last week by the official marketing and tourism organization for New York City, (known as NYC & Company,) the average cost of a hotel room in New York in May climbed by $50 over the same month in 2007.

Hotel room nights sold in New York City in May increased from 2 million last year, to 2.05 million for 2008, and the occupancy rate for the same period increased by 1 percent. Additionally, New York City’s food and beverage services and its retail sector have added 6,000 new jobs and 3,000 new jobs respectively over the past year, despite the fact that unemployment in general has increased throughout the city, as it has in the nation.

New York Hotels and New York Timeshares

Foreign travelers from many countries are still benefiting from favorable exchange rates, although the travel and tourism industries are reporting a slowdown in foreign visitors to the US, perhaps indicating that interest in US travel on discount currency has peaked. Nevertheless, there are, as always, still good values in New York timeshare resales and New York timeshare rentals that can be enjoyed no matter which legal tender you use.

Manhattan offers travelers and vacationers wonderful options in urban timeshares. Timeshare resales and timeshare rentals at the Manhattan Club and the Hilton Club are ideal options whether you are in town to see shows or to conduct business. Currently SellMyTimeshareNOW.com offers more than 250 Manhattan Club timeshare resales and approximately 20 timeshare resales or rentals at the Hilton Club.

Check out the New Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during your New York Timeshare Vacation

And here’s one fun place to visit during your New York timeshare vacation – next year the city plans to open a new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as an annex to the Cleveland-based Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. New York’s Mayor, Michael Bloomberg says it is only appropriate that the city that gave us rock legends including Blondie and Paul Simon should house an annex to the original Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Singer-songwriter and New York-native Billy Joel, who was also at the news conference announcing the planned museum, said, “New York gave me my words and my music, and rock and roll gave me a place for that music to live.”

Rock on, New York. The new museum is expected to boost tourism and create new jobs within the city.