Yesterday, the Timeshare Owners Blog told you about Disney’s expansion plans in Hawaii. The planned Oahu resort will occupy 21 acres of prime oceanfront property and will be Disney’s first hotel and timeshare resort that is not part of a theme park. While other sources list the property as yet unnamed, the Honolulu Star Bulletin calls it the: Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Ko Olina Family Resort.

COURTESY WALT DISNEY PARKS & RESORTS

From a business perspective, there are several ways to view Disney’s move to expand in Hawaii going there without the benefit of thrill rides and mouse ears as a draw for tourists. Even Disney Vacation Club timeshares currently only offer two locations that are not at a theme park destination: Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort and Disney’s Vero Beach Resort.

In some regards, Disney is a relative newcomer to the hotel and resort industry. The Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, which opened in 1955, was the first Disney-branded hotel, but it was not owned and operated by the Walt Disney company until 1988.

Still, nearly 19 years in the hotel business, is long enough for you to learn some of the ups and downs. And long enough to establish that not everything Disney touches thrives, despite magic pixie dust to help it along.

In the 1990’s Disney planned a project in Newport Coast, California, which was subsequently cancelled, and the land later sold to Marriott, who built the very successful Marriott Newport Coast Villas on the site.

Disney also planned hotels for Beaver Creek, Colorado, and in New York’s Times Square, but neither ever came to fruition. There’s a reason that Disney has shied away from the hotel business in areas that don’t have theme parks and maybe it’s been a good one.

Without Magic Mountain and twirling teacups, a Disney hotel is, well, just another great hotel, and perhaps not even as great as some of their competition. The developers of the property at Ko Olina were also in negotiations with Four Seasons, Trump Entertainment, and Ritz-Carlton for the land Disney has acquired. Recognizing that the Hawaii hotel and resort market is not one of the easiest—after all it’s not a drive-to destination for anyone—you have to wonder if Disney beat out the competition, or if the other hoteliers were wisely more conservative.

As with most things, time will tell. But if you are a member of the Disney Vacation Club, then maybe you’re in luck, and in the near future, a Disney Hawaii timeshare vacation will be in your plans.

Until then, here are only a few of the other excellent options for your Hawaii timeshare vacation:

• Marriott’s Kauai Beach Club
• Marriott’s Waiohai Beach Club
• Marriott’s Maui Ocean Club
• Marriott’s Ko Olina Beach Club
• Shell Vacations Club at Kona Coast Resort I Resales
• Westin Ka’anapali Ocean Resort Villas Rentals
• Whaler on Kaanapali Beach Rentals
• WorldMark at Kapaa Shore Rentals
• WorldMark at Kihei Resales
• Wyndham Hawaii at Kona Hawaiian Resort Resales
• Wyndham Hawaii at Royal Sea Cliff Resales

A Disney resort and Disney timeshare will be built in Oahu, Hawaii. The Disney company reportedly paid $144 million for land at Ko Olina Resort and Marina, located on the western side of the island.

COURTESY WALT DISNEY PARKS & RESORTS

The new Disney timeshare and resort is expected to open in 2011, and will include over 800 units, some of which will be for the hotel, and others will be timeshare villas for the Disney Vacation Club. According to Commercial Property News, Disney has not identified how many of the units will be timeshare and how many will be part of the hotel.

Currently there are over 350,000 members of the Disney Vacation Club, with a sixth timeshare property preparing to open in Orlando later in 2007.

The Disney timeshare at Vero Beach, Florida and the Disney timeshare at Hilton Head, South Carolina are the only two existing timeshare properties that are not built at the Disney Orlando theme parks. But this is quickly changing, with the Disney Vacation Club villas planned for the Grand Californian Hotel & Spa in Anaheim, and now the planned Disney timeshares in Hawaii.

Once the Disney timeshare in Hawaii is complete, it will employ 1000 people on the island of Oahu. Commercial Property News quoted Walt Disney Parks & Resorts chairman, Jay Rasulo as saying “This resort hotel will give our guests another way to visit an exciting part of the world with a brand they trust…Hawaii has been among our most requested Disney Vacation Club getaway location beyond our theme parks.” An article in the Honolulu Star Bulletin said that Rasulo also identified beach vacations as the number one most popular trips for families, and Hawaii is the second most popular destination after Florida.

To find out more about becoming part of the Disney vacation club by purchasing affordable Disney timeshare resales, visit the following links:

• Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas
• Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort
• The Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
• Disney’s Beach Club Villas
• Disney’s BoardWalk Villas
• Disney’s Old Key West Resort
• Disney’s Vero Beach Resort
• Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort

And for a look at the flip side of Disney’s expansion to Hawaii timeshares, be sure to check the blog tomorrow. Perhaps some of the “Imagineers” have escaped from Disney’s design departments and found their way into Disney’s business development divisions.

The chairman of the Maui County Commission, Riki Hokama, is being quoted as trying to put a cap on Maui timeshare growth. According to the Maui News, Hokama has introduced to the county council a draft resolution to limit the number of Maui timeshare units to 2,200.

So here’s the first problem: not only does Maui have 1,974 timeshare units already, but there are hundreds more in development or almost ready to open.

Hokama’s rationale for the resolution, which he introduced to the council without discussion, says that hotel vacationers spend more than twice as much money as Maui timeshare users.

His criticisms include the allegations that timeshare companies pay workers low wages and also that Maui needs hotel rooms in order to accommodate a growing market of convention groups, educators and local families.

Does this make sense to you?

Donalyn Dela Cruz, the executive director of the Hawaii chapter of the national timeshare trade group says they don’t understand why timeshares have been targeted. She points out that timeshare owners have an investment in their Hawaii timeshare and on average, stay longer in Maui than do hotel guests.

The Council Chair’s statement that hotel tourists spend more money than do timeshare guests is generally unclear and hard to follow. Does he mean that timeshare owners spend less per day on their actual accommodations than do hotel guests? If so, he’s probably correct in that regard, because timeshare owners have locked-in tomorrow’s vacations at today’s prices. But as Ms Dela Cruz so accurately points out, many Hawaii timeshare vacationers extend their stays and enjoy longer vacations than do visitors who stay in hotels. And this fact is borne out by the research prepared for the American Resort Development Association (ARDA), which shows that occupancy rates for timeshares averaged 80.9 percent in 2006, but only 63.4 percent for hotels during the same period.

Maui timeshare owners may in fact, spend less money dining in restaurants than do hotel guests, because the kitchens and dining areas found in most timeshares makes in-suite dining so convenient. But whether a traveler has $500 or $5000 set aside for vacation money, if he or she spends less on food, there is simply more money to spend on other vacation pleasures from surfboard rental to souvenirs to pina coladas.

If you have been to Hawaii, you know that the cost of living there is substantial. Employees won’t work for timeshare resorts if they can earn more money doing the same job in a hotel. Hawaii timeshares have no choice but to remain competitive with hotels for employee salaries and benefits. And with so many timeshares today either owned or managed by hotel companies, you know that they are not making it a practice to underpay employees within their vacation ownership divisions, while appropriately paying their hotel employees.

In fact, the Maui News article includes the following information from Ann Baran, whose company provides the management for Maui Schooner Resort in Kiheai. Baran told the Maui News that even though the resort has only 58 units, it still pumps almost $4 million into the economy annually through taxes and tourist dollars. More importantly, she pointed out that the timeshare employs 23 people and has a payroll of almost $800,000, which averages out to almost $35,000 annually, per employee in salary or salary plus benefits.

ARDA released a report in February of this year showing that timeshares “returned back to local economies…an estimated $62 billion in spending; 565,300 jobs; over $21 billion in salaries and wages; and more than $8 billion in tax revenue.”

I have heard local lawmakers in other areas occasionally argue the same points that Hokama raises and I have to say, I never understand it and I always wonder what’s really behind it…

Timeshare resorts seem to make an easy target when politicians or concerned citizens want to speak out against development and what they perceive as too much growth, noise, and construction in their hometowns. Mr. Hokama is a second-generation public servant in Maui and perhaps his interest is genuinely in preserving Hawaii as he remembers it.

But timeshare developments are too often singled out as a culprit, when in fact, they are no more responsible for the changing looks and demographics of an area than are residential condos, hotels, motels, and any other businesses that cater to tourists.

When politicians want to slow development in areas they represent, they should say exactly that and prepare themselves for the outcry by those in their constituencies who depend on growth and development for their livelihoods. But play fair when you address measures to cap growth and don’t just pick on timeshare resorts!

With so much in the news about homeowners trying to refinance home mortgages, I thought it was a good time to also look at the question of how to refinance timeshare.

At Sell My Timeshare NOW, we are sometimes asked if an owner can sell timeshare when they still owe money on their timeshare mortgage or loan.

To sell timeshare that you do not own free and clear is just like selling a home on which you still owe money. Selling property requires that you be able to provide the buyer a clear deed or title to it, whether it is a single-family residence, condo, or timeshare. If you still owe the mortgage company for your timeshare, you must arrange to pay the mortgage or lien holder before you can provide the deed to the new owner.

For example, if you own a timeshare that you financed, and you still owe $3000 on the debt, you will want to try to resell that timeshare for $3000 or more. Any amount of money you receive in the sale that is above what you owe to the lender is yours. If you sell timeshare for $5000, and you must pay the lien holder $3000, the remaining $2000 is yours. This money is held in escrow during the transaction of the sale, until everything is completed.

But there are other approaches to sell timeshare on which you still carry a loan. You can borrow money from another source, such as a home equity line of credit or low-interest credit card and pay off your timeshare debt. Under these circumstances, the timeshare itself does not collateralize the debt. While you will now owe money to a new lender, you will own your timeshare in entirety, without mortgage debt on it.

This frees you up to enjoy the timeshare, which is now financed at a lower rate or better terms. It also means you can sell the timeshare, keeping all of what you make on it for yourself, or using those funds to pay off the new debt you took on in order to gain full title to the timeshare.

How Can Timeshare Owners Refinance Timeshare?

There are not as many options for refinancing timeshare as other types of property, but timeshare is legally considered real property and you do have some choices. One resource to investigate is Tammac Financial. Another possibility is any lender who will loan you money based on your good credit or other measure of creditworthiness.

As I always tell you, I am not a financial advisor. Paying off your timeshare mortgage can mean that you lose the option to deduct your mortgage interest from your state or federal income taxes, and the lower interest rate is not worth the amount you lose in mortgage interest deduction. It is always advisable to turn to a reputable tax or financial advisor to help you determine what is best for your individual circumstances.