Continuing from yesterday’s Timeshare Owners Blog about the situation at Royal Oasis timeshare resort, today’s blog looks at things from the perspective of timeshare owners.

Until yesterday’s post, the last blog I wrote about circumstances at this Caribbean timeshare resort was March 7, 2007. At that time, I was quoting the Freeport News as saying that Bahamian Prime Minister Perry Christie and former Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe were both hinting at a pending purchase of the resort. So here it is, eight months later, but finally, that sale may be about to happen.

Since the timeshare resort’s closing during the 2004 hurricane season, rumors of the sale of Royal Oasis have taken on the credibility of the boy who cried wolf. However last April, Harcourt Developments, a Dublin, Ireland based property development, management and investment company, surfaced as the front-runner in the rumor mill. But it appears that this time the news is solid, and Harcourt Developments is ready to finalize the deal to purchase the Royal Oasis resort. According to an article that appeared in Dublin’s Sunday Business Post Online, the $40 million deal is nearly completed.

Harcourt has gone so far as to notify people who own Royal Oasis timeshare, telling them that their contracts will be honored. The Nassau Guardian says, “All 3,000 timeshare owners at the Royal Oasis resort appear to have won the war they’ve waged for the last three years.”

The article went on to say it is unclear whether “the government or Lehman Brothers has offered to help cover the cost of restoring timeshare owners to the position they held before 2004.” Obie Wilchcombe, according to the Nassau Guardian, “suggested that a struggling Freeport could ill afford not to satisfy those investors, given the potential for them to mount a negative campaign against a newly renovated Royal Oasis as planned by Harcourt.”

Lehman Brothers’ role in the Royal Oasis debacle is that they stepped in to control the property when former owner Driftwood, failed to meet their mortgage obligations.

Royal Oasis Timeshare Owners, Let Us Hear From You

If you own timeshare at this resort, and have received a letter from Harcourt Developments, the Timeshare Owners Blog would love to hear from you. You can leave a comment on this post, letting us know what’s happening or post comments on our Timeshare Owners Forum. We’d really like to get our news on this subject from the people with the clearest perspective—the timeshare owners at Royal Oasis!

I have been very hesitant in the past few years to write about the ups and downs at Royal Oasis timeshare in the Bahamas. Sorting out truth from rumor and promises from cold hard fact, has been extremely hard and quite honestly, every time I heard something hopeful, it seemed to be quickly followed by more bad news.

If you are a timeshare owner and you have not heard the ugly story of Royal Oasis timeshare resort, then I will summarize it by saying that in 2004, Hurricane Frances and two weeks later, Hurricane Jeanne, hit the resort, after which Royal Oasis never reopened. But as you read the facts about Royal Oasis timeshare, I think it is clear that the hurricanes might not have been the resort’s only problem—in other words, the fact that hurricanes do sometimes hit coastal timeshare resorts should not stop you if you want to buy timeshare at or near the beach.

At Royal Oasis timeshare resort, Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne may have turned out to be merely the straw that broke the camel’s back. The timeshare resort clearly had problems long before a record-setting hurricane season blew through. Many people—many, many people—were hurt by everything that happened at Royal Oasis. The damages were far greater than a leaking roof and wind damaged timeshare units.

Let’s start by looking at the problems created for the timeshare resort’s employees—800 people according to one source, 1300 according to another. My guess is the discrepancy in number probably has to do with whether one is counting all employees of the timeshare resort, or only full time employees. Either way, we are talking about a lot of people whose jobs were gone. To add insult to injury, when Driftwood Freeport Limited closed the Royal Oasis timeshare resort, they not only left millions of dollars in debts, (source: The Freeport News) they also left employees without severance pay—to the tune of $6.12 million in severance pay according to government officials in Freeport.

In 2005, the Bahamian government stepped in and paid approximately $5 million of the resort’s unpaid severance, but many people received only half of the total amount due them, and others, who disputed the amount designated for them, received none of what they were due, rather than sign off to accept an amount they believed was incorrect.

But on Monday, October 29, the Freeport News reported, “The government is going to cause to be paid (to) the workers at the Royal Oasis Hotel the balance of their redundancy payment entitlements,” according to Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham. Ingraham went on to say that, the government was taking steps to make “the reality of the payout as soon as possible.”

The article listed some of the Royal Oasis timeshare’s other debts including more than $13 million owed in casino taxes, another three-quarter million owed to Immigration, as well as debts to Customs, National Insurance, and the Union pension fund. Reportedly, Royal Oasis also was bouncing checks for employee’s deductions for their wages in order to make loan payments.

Do I know this for a fact? NO. I have not seen copies of public records or other documents to verify this information. I am basing my words solely on what has appeared online in the Freeport News.

The Royal Oasis timeshare was one of the largest resorts on the island, second in size to the Westin and Sheraton Grand Bahamas Island. When the timeshare resort closed, several neighboring businesses at the International Bazaar also went under. The culmination of the horrific hurricane season’s impact on their overall business, damages to their own properties, and the absence of foot traffic from the nearby timeshare resort, proved too much for them to withstand.

Throughout the island, grocery stores, clothing stores, neighborhood restaurants, and a host of businesses felt the pinch, when breadwinners in hundreds of families lost their livelihood with the closing of Royal Oasis timeshares. Likewise, there were independent contractors and small businesses that provided food, cleaning supplies, uniforms, and other types of goods and services to the resort itself that lost a meaningful chunk of their business revenues.

Since Royal Oasis shut its doors three years ago, the financial loss to the community has spread in a domino pattern, affecting thousands of people on Grand Bahamas Island. Thank goodness, government officials seem to be ensuring that former employees of the timeshare resort receive severance pay, despite the fact that it is not the Bahamian government’s obligation to cover the responsibilities of the resort’s ownership and management. This was an especially noble act in light of the fact that tax revenues to the Bahamian government and/or the city of Freeport probably took a dip when the resort shut down.

And as bad as this story sounds, it does not end here. In tomorrow’s Timeshare Owners Blog, we will look at what this situation has meant for vacation property owners of Royal Oasis timeshare. If you have been part of the ongoing story at Royal Oasis, or have any thoughts about it, we’d love for you to post your comments.

Perhaps the problem with America is that we lack a royal family.

Sure we are proud of our democracy, but still there lingers inside us, that occasional desire to have an imperial monarchy to admire, critique, and sometimes ogle with patriotic pride. Our longing to iconize royalty may even be what has driven us to crown pathetic pop princesses and hotel heiresses as sadly unsatisfying pseudo-sovereigns.

So in the gaping absence of American royalty to call our own, I say we historically claim King Zog.

The late King Zog was the first and only king of Albania; he died in 1961, living in comfortable exile, outside of Paris.

Zog was just the kind of king who would have fit on the pages of American history—the colorful pages. Political allegiances aside, he was known for being extremely clever, well educated, a charming ladies man, and a brilliant business mind. He holds unique status as the only recorded monarch in modern times to have staved off his own assassination attempt (there were more than 50 documented attempts on his life) by skillfully wielding the revolver he carried at all times.

And now timesharing—yes, timeshares—gives you the opportunity to establish a unique connection to the royal King Zog. It seems that King Zog’s summer palace is soon to become part of a timeshare resort.

Located in Durres, Albania, on the Adriatic Sea, the summer palace was the seaside retreat for King Zog and Queen Geraldine, whose father, interestingly was a Hungarian Count and whose mother was the daughter of a Virginia millionaire and US diplomat to Belgium, and coincidentally a cousin to past President Richard Nixon.

After the communist takeover of Albania, the palace, once resplendent with parquet floors, frescoed ceilings and a grand marble staircase, was later used only for weddings. Despite efforts by both the US and Great Britain to help King Zog and Queen Geraldine regain the throne after World War II, they were never able to return to Albania. So it seems somehow fitting that the main portion of the palace itself will house the timeshare resort’s spa and the private penthouse apartment of the King and Queen’s only child, “King” Leka.

Plans call for surrounding the palace with 50 luxury timeshare units, which will be sold in six-week ownership intervals. British consultancy, HLL Humber Leisure and Alban Xhilleri, an Albanian businessman, are developing the timeshare resort project. According to Albanian.com, Xhilleri says that he, “wants to offer international buyers something different: properties with unique historical resonance.”

Beyond the romance and intrigue innate in vacationing in an Albanian palace, there could be solid business logic in buying timeshare in this area. While Albania is one of the poorest nations in Europe, it has roughly 250 miles of coastline, much of which is very similar to the coastline of Greece, Albania’s neighbor to the south.

Resort and tourism developers are just beginning to look at Albania for its development potential. In an article written this spring, Frommers travel guide describes Albania as, “Europe’s New Sweet Spot.” Besides, how often do any of us monarch-less Americans get a chance to vacation in a royal palace?

Until accommodations are available at the Albanian summer palace, here are some links to great timeshare resales:

• Leoniki Residence timeshare resales in Greece
• Nostos Village timeshare resale in Greece
• Panareti’s Royal Coral Bay Resort Timeshare Resales in Cyprus
• Club Aphrodite at Erimi Gardens Timeshare Resales in Cyprus

Last week, American Express released their Global Business Travel Forecast for 2008. The good news for all of us is that the economy is sufficiently healthy to cause demand in business travel to exceed supply. The bad news is this means that fares for air travel, hotels, car rentals and corporate meeting and events will likely see an increase.

As Mike Streit, vice president and global leader for American Express Business Travel Advisory Services, explains, “Travel managers and procurement professionals can expect another capacity-restricted, challenging year and a continued push to keep travel and entertainment budgets in check.”

Wow, now that’s something to look forward to, isn’t it?

So here’s a summary of what the American Express study shows:

You should also expect increased airfares, which are projected (in the US alone) to rise from 1 to 5 percent for economy class domestic flights and 5 to 10 percent for international business class. On top of that, car rental rates in the US are projected to increase by 2 to 4 percent.

Timing never looked better to buy timeshare resales or to take advantage of timeshare rentals. Hoteliers and timeshare developers recognize that consumers not only see the value in owning a timeshare, but prefer the typically more spacious accommodations a timeshare unit offers over a hotel room. With new timeshares being built at amazing rates, it is realistic for you to expect more timeshares-both new units and timeshare resales-on the market in the months ahead.

Let’s face it. There is very little you can do to stop price increases for hotel rooms and air fares, but you can lock in a great rate for accommodations, by purchasing timeshare resales today to enjoy for a lifetime.

Sell My Timeshare NOW is a leader in offering by-owner timeshare and timeshare resales, as well as timeshare rentals, at prices that will make you wonder why you ever paid hotel rates.