Sell My Timeshare NOW at Global Timeshare Conference GNEX

Last week was the first annual Global Networking Expo & Perspective Magazine Awards Gala, held at the Atlantis Resort, Paradise Island, Bahamas—also known as, “The GNEX Conference.”

This new event to the timeshare industry brought opportunity for learning, networking, connecting. It also offered the perfect venue for looking at some of the “BURNING ISSUES” of timeshare. I enjoyed speaking on a panel, along with Ross Perlmutter, President, Canadian Resort Development Association; Ramy Filo, CEO, Classic Holiday Group; Harry Taylor, Executive Chairman, Timeshare Association Timeshare Owners Committees, Robert Webb of Baker and Hostetler; and Bryan Lunt, Chairman & CEO, Absolute World Group of Companies.

Burning Issues of Timeshare Sales and Timeshare Resales

We didn’t sidestep the difficult questions or shy away from the challenges our industry faces. We looked seriously at the consumer issues of timeshare; media perception (and misconception) about vacation ownership; and weaknesses in the both the timeshare product and its delivery to consumers.

Here are some of the points that were made in our Timeshare Burning Issues Panel:

1. Timeshare has to change its marketing model. Fewer and fewer people are willing to “be sold to” at a timeshare sales presentation.
2. The timeshare industry must accept the fact that consumers will comparison shop. The industry can’t be afraid of that or back off from it. Consumers in control, comparison shopping, is the reality of a web-connected world, where people are “armed” with iPods, iPads, and Blackberries.
3. Timeshare sales are an international product, sold to an international market. Seventeen percent of the timeshare resales and rentals at Sell My Timeshare NOW involve international clients.

4. Demand for timeshare sales, timeshare rentals, and timeshare resales via an online inventory and an online transaction is already high. As fellow panelist, Rob Webb, an attorney who specializes in real estate and hospitality law, says, “In five years, the timeshare product will be sold on the Internet. If a company is not ready for that, they’ll be out of business.”

We covered a lot of very important territory at the conference. By the way, here’s a photo from the event which shows all of us on the Burning Issues panel.