Hilton Timeshare

A September 5 article in Hotels Magazine tells us that perhaps as much as 3 trillion US dollars will be invested in Middle East tourism over the next 20 years.

$3 trillion!

So I bet you are as interested as I am in who is spending that money and what they are creating. Here’s the way the Hotels Magazine article breaks down Middle East hotel and resort development:

• • Rotana Hotels and Resorts (a regional chain) will double its portfolio to 53 hotels by 2010.
• • Marriott International currently has 22 hotels there and plans to add 16 more.
• • Hilton Hotels has 11 properties in various stages of development in the region and anticipates committing to 20 more within the next 5 years.
• • Japanese owned JAL Hotels has already opened a new 257 room property, with plans to open two more, even larger, next year.
• • India based Flora Group Hotels is opening their sixth hotel in Dubai later this year, with plans for 4 additional properties.
• • By 2010, European based, Accor will triple their number of managed properties in the Middle East, with 30 hotels, accounting for more than 8,000 rooms.
• • By 2009, Rezidor Hotel Group will add 20,000 rooms, although this number also includes the company’s growth plans for Europe and parts of Africa. Currently Rezidor has 14 Radisson properties in the Middle East.

What is perhaps the most amazing point about this extensive list is that it doesn’t include timeshare developments, the hotel and resort development underway by companies that are actually based in the Middle East, nor does it include the development of any budget brand properties.

The Timeshare Owners Blog writes frequently about the rapidly changing face of the resort and timeshare industry in the Middle East. It’s hard to be a part of the timeshare business and ignore what is going on. Growth in this corner of the world is staggering. Reports say that perhaps as many as one in four of all construction cranes are located in Dubai, and remember, Dubai is only 3885 square kilometers in size, or about three-quarters the size of Rhode Island.

What does this astounding growth and development mean for you as a timeshare owner or someone who wants to buy timeshare?

For starters, owning a timeshare with exchange privileges in a network that includes the United Arab Emirates, Israel timeshares, Egypt timeshares, Lebanon timeshares, Saudi Arabia, Syria, or other parts of the Middle East, means your timeshare should always have good exchange potential. It should also have a decent resale value, as well as good potential for use as a timeshare rental.

But what this incredible growth (much of which is funded by US industry) means for Americans and western culture as a whole, only time will tell.

In today’s blog, I am adding not one, but two YouTube videos. They are very different in content, as the first one follows, in high-energy fashion, the construction of the Burj Dubai-a skyscraper which, when complete, will be the tallest building in the world. As you watch the video, look for the slides near the end that give you an idea of just how tall a roughly 160-story building really is.

After you watch the Burj construction video, take a few more minutes and watch the very serene video about the development of some of Dubai’s outer islands. While this second YouTube was put together as a promotional piece for a company providing water taxi services, the information about some of the residential islands themselves is very close to mind-boggling.

In January 2008, Stephen F. Bollenbach, co-chairman and CEO of Hilton Hotels will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Americas Lodging Investment summit according to the Hospitality Net.

Hilton Grand Vacations and The Hilton Club, or what is also referred to as Hilton timeshares, are wholly owned by the Hilton Hotels Corp. Acquisition of Hilton Hotels, including the timeshare division, is currently underway by the Blackstone Group, according to Reuters News Agency.

Bollenbach was originally scheduled to retire from Hilton on January 1, 2008 and would have then received $4 million over five years for serving as a consultant to the company after he retires. Instead, Forbes reports, he will likely be involuntarily terminated after the acquisition by the Blackstone Group and receive $10.5 million in a severance payment.

It will be interesting to see if Blackstone succeeds in acquiring Hilton.

You can buy new Hilton timeshares from the Hilton corporation and in doing so, you will indirectly be contributing to the retirement fund of a lot of hardworking Hilton employees and some very highly paid executives and stockholders. Or you can buy Hilton timeshare resales directly from their current owner and put the money you save in your own retirement fund, or anywhere else you would like to use and enjoy it.

Hilton timeshare resales at Hilton are available at:

• Hilton Grand Vacation Club at Sea World International Center – Orlando, Florida
• Hilton Grand Vacation Club on International Drive – Orlando, Florida
• Hilton Grand Vacation Club at the Flamingo – Las Vegas, Nevada
• Hilton Grand Vacation Club at the Las Vegas Hilton – Las Vegas, Nevada
• Hilton Grand Vacation Club on the Las Vegas Strip – Las Vegas, Nevada
• Hilton Grand Vacations Club at Waikoloa Beach Resort – Waikoloa, Hawaii
• Hilton Grand Vacation Club at Hilton Hawaiian Village – Honolulu, Hawaii
• Hilton Grand Vacation Club at the Kalia Tower – Honolulu, Hawaii
• Hilton Grand Vacation Club at South Beach – Miami Beach, Florida
• Hilton Kings’s Land (planned to open 2008) Hawaii
• The Grand Waikikian (planned) Hawaii

Or visit Sell My Timeshare NOW to look for timeshare resale values at these Hilton Grand Vacations Club affiliated or Hilton managed timeshare resorts.

What is the first big clue that timeshare resorts are edging out the hotel market, claiming more and more vacation business and a bigger piece of the hospitality and tourism pie?

Simple.

The fact is that most major hotel chains are devoting as much or more attention (and more dollars) to their timeshare and vacation ownership divisions as to their regular hotel business. There are the Disney Vacation Club Resorts, Marriott Vacation Club International, the Hyatt Vacation Club, Hilton Grand Vacations, Wyndham Vacation Ownership and even the Ritz Carlton Club and Residence, to name a few of the big dogs now on the playing field.

Timeshares, or vacation ownership, as some providers like to call it, are giving hotels such serious competition that in top tourist destinations like Orlando, Florida, hoteliers actually blame the decline in room night bookings on the excellent offerings in timeshares, timeshare resales, and timeshare rentals.

Today, most leading hotel companies have a timeshare division, even though many like to avoid use of the word “timeshare” and replace it instead with phrases like vacation ownership and vacation club. No matter what you call it, it’s still timeshare. Ritz-Carlton Hotel spokesperson, Vivian Deuschl, says the Ritz-Carlton Hotel company will no longer even manage a hotel unless it includes a residential component, according to a July 6, 2005 article published in USA Today.

A recent Time Magazine article about the newest trend in hotels, makes me wonder if one specific trend isn’t a direct response to the competitive pressure hotels feel from timeshares. The Time article states, “Global tourism is thriving, and the luxury segment, the top 15 percent of the market by price, is driving it. With rates as high as $25,000 a night, these are the most profitable rooms in a hotel, and they consistently have the highest occupancy rates”. The Time Magazine article, titled “The Grander Hotel”, goes on to cite Smith Travel Research as showing that luxury room revenues increased more than 10 percent from 2005 to 2006.

Let me make something clear, we are not talking about the type of luxury you find in a fabulous beachside Marriott Vacation Club timeshare, where the suites are spacious and the amenities are practically perfect. Time Magazine is talking about uber-luxury, targeted at a market willing to pay thousands or tens of thousands per night for hotel accommodations, sometimes referred to as “ultraluxe”.

While this may be a growing market, I’d say that it is not one that most of us are going to be part of, at least not on a regular basis.

Let’s see, you can pay $25,000 for one room night—one time—at an ultraluxe hotel. You can buy a fabulous timeshare week from the timeshare developer for about the same amount of money and use it for 7 days, each and every year, for the rest of your life. Or, for that kind of money, you can deal directly with timeshare owners who want to sell timeshare they currently own, and you can buy the right to enjoy anywhere from 14 nights to perhaps as many as 30 or even 60 or 70 nights, per year, every single year, as long as you own the timeshare. Own a timeshare for 20 years, and you conceivably could get 1400 vacation days and nights from an initial expenditure of $25,000.

I suspect many of us will be passing up ultraluxe and “settling” for more affordable (and more logical) levels of luxury.

Last month The Sunday Times Travel Magazine released a survey that said the number one complaint among vacationers is noisy neighbors.

At first I was surprised by this, but then I thought about how important rest and relaxation are to all of us and how often we are deprived of it. According to an article by Kathleen Fackelmann in USA Today, which quotes a study conducted by University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine researcher, Mathias Basner, “Sleep deprivation has been linked to serious health problems, including obesity.”

The article went on to explain, “People who are chronically sleep-deprived also can experience attention lapses, memory loss and other difficulties that can impair performance on the job, according to James Walsh, executive director of the sleep medicine and research center at St. Luke’s Hospital in St. Louis“.

So it really makes sense that when we finally break out of our work-work-work routines to enjoy a luxurious hotel or timeshare resort, we really count on getting a good night’s sleep.

Hotel Executive Magazine looked at the full report from The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and found that, by percentage, the following issues account for 50 percent of the things we don’t like about hotel rooms.

• Noisy neighbors and thin walls: 28 percent
• Noise from the street: 6 percent
• Size of room: 16 percent

Not every timeshare resort is a perfect solution for these problems, but considering that timeshare rooms are typically so much more spacious than hotel rooms, the odds of improving the rest and relaxation factor of your vacation increase tremendously when you stay in a timeshare. Timeshare resorts typically include a kitchen and dining area.

Most timeshares are much more like a condo suite or apartment than like an average hotel room. Obviously, the more room between you and your next-door neighbors, the more peace and quiet you can expect. And with more space for you and your family to spread out, you avoid the hotel scenario of a family of four cramped into a room with 2 beds and a single bathroom.

While there are thousands of peaceful timeshare resorts from which to select, here are a few that timeshare owners have identified as being particularly restful retreats:

Paradise Beach Villas in Aruba

Hilton Suites Venezuela

Wyndham Glade in Tennessee

Marriott Legends Edge at Bay Point, Florida

The timeshare resales professionals at Sell My Timeshare NOW are always available to help you custom select the timeshare resale or timeshare rental that is the right match for the way you and your family like to vacation.