timeshare news

Orlando’s bed tax is not an issue for timeshare owners or those who rent timeshare by-owner.

How did you feel when you helped pay for the expansion of the Convention Center in Orlando? And wasn’t that nice of you to underwrite the city bus system there and pay for all those television ads to attract more tourists to Central Florida?

Don’t remember doing that?

If you enjoyed an Orlando vacation and stayed in a hotel or motel room there, then you did donate to a number of city and county projects—in addition to the donation you made via state and county sales tax to the highways, school systems and community services enjoyed by Florida residents.

The Central Florida vacation area, like many other tourist destinations across the country, levies a tourist tax or bed tax on top of their state and local sales tax. Hotel and motel occupants must pay both taxes on every room night booked. And because this double taxation accounts for a minimum of 11 percent of every hotel bill, (more in some areas) it is no wonder travelers reel with sticker shock when they see their final bill.

But residents of The City Beautiful may soon have to find another way to build a new arena for the NBA’s Orlando Magic and a new community performing arts center. Despite the fact that tourism is up in central Florida—hotel occupancy is down. When industry experts went looking for someone to blame for the room night shortage, (because surely the tourists were not all sleeping in their cars) they found the culprit to be timeshare resorts!

According to Staff Writer, Tim Barker, of the Orlando Sentinel in 2001, 10 percent of all visitors to the area stayed in Orlando timeshares. By 2005, that number had increased to 15 percent. Because timeshare owners are actual property owners, they do pay a percentage of their unit’s annual property or real estate taxes. But they are not charged with bed tax or sales tax on timeshare nights because they are sleeping in a bed they actually own.

What’s more, most timeshare renters are not charged the bed tax, if they lease a timeshare property directly from the person who owns it. Until municipal governments figure out how to collect and enforce such an effort, they simply have no way to track or collect the bed tax on individual transactions that often take place online, outside the state of Florida, perhaps even outside the US. The only situation in which timeshare renters are likely to be hit by the bed tax is when they rent timeshare directly from the resort.

So if you are considering selling your Orlando timeshare, the good news is that the Orlando resale market gets stronger and stronger all the time. And if you’d like to hang on to your timeshare resort property and use it as a rental, that market looks equally solid, especially as hotel rates (and their additional taxes) creep upward, already up 9 percent in the first quarter of 2006 compared with 2005.

No wonder even highly

New Wellness Community to Focus on Health, Fitness, and Relaxation

Tucson’s famed Canyon Ranch Spa and Wellness Center is planning to build their third “healthy living” residential community. But future residents should not expect desert vistas or cactus flowers in bloom. The newest Canyon Ranch facility will be a 67-story tower overlooking Chicago’s city-center strip known as the Magnificent Mile.

Plans for the health-centered residential community include a 65,000 square foot health and wellness complex, 256 luxury condos, 128 hotel-condominium rooms (that can be purchased like timeshares), and 48,000 square feet of office space. An on-staff medical team, therapists, and other specialists from the Cleveland Clinic will be available to serve the needs of the residents.

Similar properties are planned for Miami Beach, Florida, and Bethesda, Maryland, with Los Angeles, New York City, and Texas as other potential development locations. Canyon Ranch and the Chicago-based LR Development Company, made the official announcement about Canyon Ranch-Chicago on May 19, 2006, and plan to break ground on the 450 million dollar property early next year.  

It’s been a crazy couple of days in our New Hampshire offices, as floodwaters still rage after days and days of rain.

I’m going off topic this time. It’s been an eventful several days in New Hampshire, and I’m glad our team has held up under the flood conditions which still prevail in this area. Though some of the basements in our homes have flooded, we are mostly unaffected by this weather.

The main challenge lies in the roads around the area, many of which have been severely damaged. This in particular underscores the seriousness of this situation; New England hasn’t experienced flooding like this in the past 70 years.

Our office is located directly above a waterfall on the Cocheco river, so we have a firsthand view of the fury of these floods. Nevertheless, like much of downtown Dover, our building was built on solid stone slabs, some of these foundations dating back to the 1600’s, when Dover was first settled. These massive stoneworks and brick walls are a real miracle of engineering, allowing the river to pass smoothly through the building’s arch.

There’s a message here; even through emergency conditions, SellMyTimeshareNOW thrives. We meet adversity with adaptability every time!

We started up our own Flickr account, so check it out if you want to see more pictures that we took earlier today of the flooded conditions in and around Dover, New Hampshire.

There’s relatively little coverage of Dover on the news; it’s kind of a small town. However, do a search on Flickr for “Dover New Hampshire floods” or just “New England floods” and you’ll turn up some amazing pictures of these floods. These people deserve credit for recording a historic event, as severe flooding in New England is not a common occurrence.

The search for Jennifer Kesse, a Westgate timeshare employee, continues despite little evidence and few clues.

The search for Jennifer Kesse, a Westgate timeshare employee and Orlando resident, continues despite little in the way of evidence or clues to assist in her recovery. Jennifer has been missing since January 24, 2006, when it is believed she left home en route to work and has not been seen or heard from since.

Law enforcement officials, friends, co-workers, and hundreds and hundreds of people who have never met Jennifer or her family, have assisted in the search for the missing 24-year-old. At a press conference on April 24, 2006, the Kesse family announced that a new reward is being issued for information leading to Jennifer’s return. David Siegel, President and CEO of Westgate Resorts, is now offering $250,000 to anyone who comes forward within the next thirty days with information that results in Jennifer’s safe return.

As an additional motivator for anyone with knowledge of her whereabouts or the events surrounding her disappearance, the family maintains a cell phone number for anonymous tips. They hope that a number not linked to a police hotline will encourage someone to come forward with what they know. Anyone with information about Jennifer is urged to contact CrimeLine at 1-800-423-TIPS, or use the family’s dedicated cell phone number 407-722-2162. Information can also be mailed anonymously to: Jennifer Kesse Tips, 5389 S. Kirkman Road, Box 103-125, Orlando, FL 32819. The family wants everyone to know that they are not interested in prosecuting anyone; they just want Jennifer home again.

Here are some suggestions that will help you spread the word:

• Add a link to the bottom of all the emails you send, encouraging people to be on the lookout for Jennifer and directing people to www.jenniferkesse.com to learn more.
• Post flyers about her disappearance anywhere you can—the search for Jennifer is not limited to Orlando. If you can’t post a stack of flyers, attach at least one to your car.
• Spread the word. One person helping in the search says she regularly pays her bills by phone and makes it a point to tell each person with whom she speaks about Jennifer and urge them to share the word at their workplace.