Timeshare Resales

Last month, with a ribbon cutting ceremony at 100 Domain Drive, Exeter, New Hampshire, Sell My Timeshare NOW and VacationOwnership.com moved into new, purpose-built office space. For the timeshare resale and rental innovator, the move is more than the opening of doors to new offices; it parallels the company’s launch of a new perspective on renting and marketing timeshare resales.

For Sell My Timeshare NOW, a brand that began in 2003 as a home based business, the move to new offices represents the company’s $1.5 million investment in the future of timeshare resales and rentals. The modern, 20,000-square-foot environment was designed to accommodate a growing staff with increasing technology needs. The space is equipped with next-generation technology, state-of-the-art workstations and a 700-square-foot break room and training area. Geographically, the new location better positions the company to attract future employees from Boston’s tech-savvy labor pool. Together with its existing office in Orlando, Florida, the timeshare resale and rental leader now has the space and technology it needs to grow.

Timeline of a Growing Timeshare Company

A long way from its beginnings as a self-funded startup, Sell My Timeshare NOW initially offered timeshare resale and rental by-owner services  to consumers with the goal of bringing the ease of online sales and rentals to the secondary marketplace. In 2006, the company expanded to include licensed timeshare brokerage. In 2009, it further expanded its offerings, adding custom resort services through a division originally called Vacation Property Solutions. Today, through the Resort Services division of the company’s brokerage brand, Vacation Ownership Brokerage, resorts, HOAs, timeshare developers, and timeshare management companies benefit from client-specific services, custom designed to help them respond to the resale needs of their owners.

In December 2008, Sell My Timeshare NOW took on $10 million in expansion funding provided through Edison Venture Fund, an investor known for backing high-growth, entrepreneurial technology organizations. In 2012, Edison Venture Fund sold its equity interest through a merger transaction and in August 2012, VacationOwnership.com and SellMyTimeshareNOW.com, with its new investor, announced the company’s strategic partnership with Vacation Innovations LLC. The result of the merger and partnership is the creation of one of the world’s largest timeshare resale and rental companies.

• SellMyTimeshareNOW.com for by-owner timeshare resale and rental.
• Vacation Ownership Brokerage for timeshare brokerage and resort services.
• ResortRentals.com, a revolutionary approach to timeshare rental and marketing and the company’s newest brand addition.

Beyond Cutting Ribbons, it’s Time to Cut to the Chase

Recognizing that today’s vacationer is already in the habit of booking travel online,  VacationOwnership.com LLC is developing ResortRentals.com, designed to deliver reliable vacation rentals via a website that is similar in user experience to that of the online travel agencies (OTAs). Jason Tremblay, founder of Sell My Timeshare NOW and VacationOwnership.com describes it as, “a next generation technology approach” to reach the next generation of timeshare buyers and renters.

Created to out-compete OTAs in booking vacation rentals, ResortRentals.com will feature timeshare rentals at prices no online travel service currently offers or can match and guarantee. Today’s consumer is accustomed to booking travel and vacation accommodations on websites that aggregate multiple brand offerings, is confident in the process, and appreciates the ease and 24/7 availability that online travel agencies offer. Yet in most cases, these same vacationers would not be comfortable with what they know (or think they know) about timeshare as a vacation product. They don’t understand timeshare, often don’t trust it, and they are not going to agree to a resort tour. Nevertheless, they will rent timeshares online if the price is right and the booking process is user-friendly and similar to that of the OTAs they already trust.

Driven by the types of search engine optimization (SEO) technology proven by SellMyTimeshareNOW.com to be robustly effective in capturing the demand for rentals and aggregating the largest inventory of available timeshare rentals in the secondary market, ResortRentals.com has the potential to redefine the way vacationers plan weeklong getaways and annual holidays. Adding to the brand’s commercial appeal is “Spot,” an animated version of the viewfinders you remember from your childhood vacations.

Spot will help consumers spot the best rental deals at all the top vacation spots, while ensuring that travelers never overpay or under-stay during a vacation again. A national publicity campaign will introduce Spot and ResortRentals.com to the massive marketplace of vacationing consumers who currently book their travel online. Through ResortRentals.com both timeshare owners and select timeshare HOAs, resale and management companies will gain an effective platform for monetizing timeshare while promoting the vacation ownership product to what is currently a  massive and under-marketed segment of the vacationing population.

A Clear Cut Marketing Approach

ResortRentals.com is currently adding inventory and readying itself for full launch to the consumer market in upcoming months. Already soft launched as a beta website, www.ResortRentals.com showcases a user-friendly interface, designed to make it easy for vacationers to search the site by the date they want to travel or the location or resort they wish to visit. When fully built out, the website will enable renters to search resorts by sleeping capacity, on-site amenities or other key features. Visitors must register in order to book their timeshare or to receive updates and notices on future vacation opportunities that might interest them.

Working in partnership with timeshare exchange providers, ResortRentals.com will deliver timeshare rentals that in industry terminology, are “cleaned and pressed,” assuring renters that their bookings are secure, their rental rates are far below those offered by any OTA, and that these vacations values are available to them without the requisite of buying vacation club or travel club products. Timeshare owners with weeks or points to rent, and select HOAs or management companies can offer their properties (or points) as a vacation rental. Rates for rentals will be standardized using proprietary demand-curve pricing technology. Timeshare owners will not be competing with each other onpricing but can collectively compete with hotel booking websites and websites where people use private homes as vacation rentals. Anyone who submits a unit or interval for rental via ResortRentals.com is also agreeing to the ResortRentals.com price drop policy through which targeted price reductions occur when an unrented timeshare approaches its use date. Over time, ResortRentals.com could dramatically reduce the overall incidence of unused weeks from which no one benefits, typically described as “burn inventory.”

ResortRentals.com is projected to be a game changing rental and marketing option for vacation ownership. By exposing an untapped market of vacationers to the fun, spacious accommodations and desirable amenities timeshares afford, ResortRentals.com could extend a firsthand timeshare experience to millions of vacationers who might otherwise never see for themselves what vacation ownership really offers.

Moving into the Future

From new offices to new products and new directions in timeshare rental and resale marketing, VacationOwnership.com LLC is on the move, yet remains dedicated to the company’s core objective of providing effective and affordable ways to buy, rent or sell timeshare resales online. Strong, stable, growing and focused on delivering timeshare the way today’s consumer wants to buy or rent it, VacationOwnership.com LLC sees ResortRentals.com as a new product on track to make a formidable impact in a changing marketplace. With ResortRentals.com, consumers should soon be spotting great rental deals and seeing vacation ownership from a fresh and inviting new perspective.

The following article, “VacationOwnership.com LLC: Making Moves and Making Sense in Today’s Marketplace” appears in the current issue of Perspective Magazine. 

VacationOwnership.com LLC: Making Moves and Making Sense in Today’s Marketplace

Sell My Timeshare NOW has been making headlines in the secondary timeshare market since it first launched. Created to provide consumers the ease and availability of internet search for timeshare resales and rentals, even the company’s founder Jason Tremblay didn’t foresee how fast the company would grow or how effective its services would become. Now, as part of VacationOwnership.com LLC, the timeshare resale and rental advertising and brokerage leader is not only making moves but making more sense than ever for today’s timeshare marketplace, taking big steps that have the potential to impact the vacation ownership industry at a game changing level.

Last month, the company cut the ribbon on 20,000 square feet of modern new office space in Exeter, New Hampshire. After many years in nearby Dover (NH), VacationOwnership.com LLC was in need of a facility that could be purpose-built to accommodate its increasing technology needs and growing staff. Equipped with next-generation technology, state-of-the-art workstations and 700 square feet of break room and training area, the customized space at 100 Domain Drive, Exeter, NH, proved to be the ideal solution. Including its existing office in Orlando, Florida, VacationOwnership.com now has the space it needs to grow, the technology its innovative concepts require, and is positioned to attract prospective employees from Boston’s tech-savvy labor pool. The new VacationOwnership.com LLC offices in Exeter represent a $1.5 million investment in the future of the company and, in a way, in the changing future of the shared ownership industry.

Question:  So what’s behind all the growth at VacationOwnership.com?

Answer: The company is taking a series of very deliberate steps that it believes lay the groundwork for revolutionary industry changes and opportunities.

The Foundation

Initially offering by-owner timeshare resale and rental services to consumers, in 2006 the company expanded to include licensed timeshare brokerage for the secondary market. In 2009, the company added custom resort services originally called Vacation Property Solutions and now offered through the Resort Services division of the company’s brokerage brand, VacationOwnership.com Realty.

Although Sell My Timeshare NOW was self-funded at its startup in 2003, in December 2008, it took on $10 million in growth and expansion funding through Edison Venture Fund, an investor known for backing high-growth, entrepreneurial technology organizations. In 2012, Edison Venture Fund sold its equity interest through a merger transaction and in August 2012, VacationOwnership.com and SellMyTimeshareNOW.com, with its new investor, announced the company’s strategic partnership with Vacation Innovations LLC. The result of the merger and partnership is the creation of one of the world’s largest timeshare resale and rental companies.

The Next Big Steps

Today the company is known as VacationOwnership.com LLC and includes the brands SellMyTimeshareNOW.comfor by-owner timeshare resale and rental; VacationOwnership.com Brokerage for timeshare brokerage and resort services; and the company’s newest brand, ResortRentals.com, a revolutionary approach to timeshare rental and marketing.

VacationOwnership.com LLC is strong, stable, growing and focused on the future, but with the launch of ResortRentals.com, one can’t help but add the words disruptive, vibrant, and trailblazing to any discussion of the company. ResortRentals.com is already in its soft launch stage as a beta website, adding inventory and readying itself for full launch to the consumer market in upcoming months. Working in partnership with timeshare exchange providers, ResortRentals.com will offer timeshare rentals that in industry terminology, are “cleaned and pressed,” assuring renters that their bookings are secure, their rental rates are far below those offered by any OTA, and that these vacations values are available to them without the requisite of buying vacation club or travel club products.

Led by “Spot,” an animated version of those scenic viewfinders that have been part of everyone’s vacations since childhood, ResortRentals.com will make it possible for people to spot the best rental deals while never overpaying or under-staying during a vacation again. With a national marketing campaign planned to introduce ResortRentals.com and Spot to the vast market of vacationing consumers who already book travel online,  timeshare owners, and select timeshare HOAs, resale and management companies will gain a robust platform for monetizing timeshare while promoting the vacation ownership concept to a whole new market of vacationers.

Being developed to out-compete the online travel agencies (OTAs), ResortRentals.com will feature vacation rentals at prices no other online travel service currently offers or can match and guarantee. Driven by the types of search engine optimization (SEO) technology already proven by SellMyTimeshareNOW.com to be powerfully effective in capturing the demand for rentals and aggregating the largest inventory of available timeshare rentals in the secondary market, ResortRentals.com will redefine the way vacationers plan weeklong getaways and annual holidays.

But what can the vacation ownership industry expect from ResortRentals.com?

The ResortRentals.com website has been designed with a simple, user-friendly interface. Consumers can search the site by the date they want to vacation or the location or resort they wish to visit. When fully operational, the website will also enable renters to peruse resort rentals by sleeping capacity, resort amenities or other features. Visitors must register in order to book their resort vacation or to receive updates and notices on future vacation opportunities that might interest them.

Timeshare owners with weeks or points to rent, and select HOAs or management companies can offer their properties (or points) as a vacation rental. Rates for rentals will be standardized using proprietary demand-curve pricing technology. Timeshare owners will not be competing with each other on pricing but can collectively compete with hotel booking websites and websites where people use private homes as vacation rentals. Anyone who submits a unit or interval for rental via ResortRentals.com is also agreeing to the ResortRentals.com price drop policy through which targeted price reductions occur when an unrented timeshare approaches its use date. Over time, ResortRentals.com could dramatically reduce the overall incidence of unused weeks from which no one benefits, typically described as “burn inventory.” More importantly, ResortRentals.com has tremendous potential for marketing timeshare ownership to a previously untouched segment of the vacation market.

Research conducted on behalf of News24 Travel revealed that, in a survey of more than 2000 consumers who travel regularly, 93 percent use the Internet to research, discuss or book their travel. Of those surveyed, 88 percent said they routinely search travel sites seeking the best deals on accommodations, with 73 percent indicating that they make their final decision regarding accommodations based on price. These consumers, and millions of others like them, are part of an untapped market. They represent the generation of adults who have used computers since childhood, are fully comfortable shopping on websites and booking travel online, and who are currently underrepresented within the timeshare owner market segment. They don’t understand the timeshare product, often don’t trust it, and aren’t going on a resort tour … but they will rent timeshare resorts if the prices are right and the process is comparable to that of the OTAs with which they are already comfortable. ResortRentals.com is the conduit for introducing a new generation of vacationers to the pleasures of timeshare resort vacations while also creating a pipeline for owners and others who want to market timeshare as by-owner or broker facilitated resales.

A long way from its start-up days nearly a decade ago when the company’s founders began SellMyTimeshareNOW.com as a home-based business,  VacationOwnership.com LLC remains dedicated to the company’s core objective of providing effective and  affordable ways to buy, rent or sell timeshare resales online. With ResortRentals.com now part of the big picture, bringing with it the potential to dramatically impact the way timeshare is marketed, rented and purchased, it’s clear that consumers will soon be spotting great rental deals and seeing the timeshare product from a fresh perspective. Whether you call it making moves, making sense, or making waves, VacationOwnership.com LLC is making an impact in a changing marketplace.

When Wyndham Vacation Ownership (Wyndham timeshare) shares the message of its beautiful Wyndham vacation ownership resorts, it sure knows how to get people’s attention in the right way. In a promotion called, “Accelerate Into The Fast Lane,”

Wyndham Vacation Ownership will award six lucky winners the opportunity to win a new luxury car. Wyndham timeshare owners and guests of Wyndham Vacation Ownership® (WVO), will be able to enter for a chance to win a new luxury automobile, worth up to $50,000, with cars awarded to winners every other month throughout 2013. Wyndham Vacation Ownership will automatically enter owners and guests who are eligible to participate in the sweepstakes (up to four entries) pursuant to the contest’s Official Rules. (Official Rules Apply.)

Wyndham Vacation Ownership chief sales & marketing officer, Jeff Myers, says,“We have the finest owners and guests and we are thrilled that, in addition to helping them create a lifetime of unforgettable vacation memories, the Accelerate into the Fast Lane Sweepstakes provides an opportunity to reward them with a chance to win a luxury car, too. With hundreds of destinations across the country, WVO makes every vacation worth taking, and in the Accelerate into the Fast Lane Sweepstakes, every car is worth winning.”

About Wyndham Vacation Ownership, Wyndham Timeshare

Wyndham Vacation Ownership, a member of Wyndham Worldwide’s family of companies, is the world’s largest vacation ownership business, as measured by the number of vacation ownership resorts, individual vacation ownership units and owners of vacation ownership interests. Wyndham Vacation Ownership develops, markets and sells vacation ownership interests and provides consumer financing to owners through its four primary consumer brands, CLUB WYNDHAM®, WorldMark® by Wyndham, Wyndham Vacation Resorts Asia Pacific and Shell Vacations. As of December 31, 2012, Wyndham Vacation Ownership had developed or acquired more than 185 vacation ownership resorts throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and the South Pacific that represent more than 23,000 individual vacation ownership units and more than 920,000 owners of vacation ownership interests. Wyndham Vacation Ownership is headquartered in Orlando, Fla., and is supported by more than 15,000 employees globally.

The following look at timeshare resales is from an article published by The Resort Trades (March 2013). In the article we look at how consumers have already changed their feeling about generic or ‘store brand’ products through a generation of familiarization with the concept, thanks primarily to your local grocery store. As you will read, when consumers grow more comfortable with an idea in one application, that comfort level spills over into other buying decisions they will make.

Thank you to The Resort Trades for permission to publish this article here on The Timeshare Authority blog. You can also read this and other timely news about timeshare and vacation ownership in print in the March edition of the magazine or online at The Resort Trades March 2013.

Are resales becoming the ‘store brand’ of timeshare?

by Jason Tremblay

Consumer confidence is higher – or lower – depending upon which report you read. Regardless of whether people believe the economy is trending up or down, the average consumer has, thanks to plenty of practice in recent years, become a price-conscious shopper.

While ten years ago, only 8 percent of shoppers regularly purchased generic or store brands, today, 97 percent of U.S. households buy store brand (also called private label, or generic) products on a regular basis. And it stands to reason that if the average family has grown comfortable with buying generic for the household products they use and the food they feed their children, then they are growing just as comfortable buying timeshare from a reseller as they are from the branded hospitality provider. They understand that the contents inside the can haven’t changed, just the pricing and the packaging.

Shoppers have come to recognize over the years that a store brand is likely to be manufactured by the same company that makes the branded label product. While generic vs. brand is not always an apples to apples comparison, and some branded products are higher in quality than their store brand counterparts, consumers are no longer hesitant to check out the store brand, do their own comparison, and determine for themselves whether they want to buy name brands or go generic.

When it comes to timeshare and vacation ownership sold on the secondary market, the vacation product being offered is often identical to the timeshare a family would purchase from a developer. When timeshare companies hold back certain perks and privileges that do not transfer to the resale buyer, the difference may matter to the consumer, but oftentimes a resale buyer is willing to forego some resort or vacation club membership benefits in order to realize the savings inherent in buying on the secondary market.

Blame the banks, the mortgage companies, elected officials or the swinging pendulum of fate, the causes of the recent recession don’t matter nearly as much as the changes that have ensued in its wake. Consumers have evolved. They have changed dramatically in their buying habits and spending patterns. When it comes to selling vacation ownership to consumers, the timeshare industry can no longer party (or market) like it’s 1999.

Store brand creep

Accepting that store brands and name brands can live compatibly on the shelves together would be a positive step forward for the timeshare industry. But if timeshare buying continues to parallel trends in other buying sectors, living in harmony may not be enough.

In the 1970s, when generic or store brands first began to make their way into the marketplace, they showed up in plain white labels, with black lettering and no photos or graphics on the can. However since that time, creep has occurred. Slowly, without consumers even realizing it has happened, store brands have taken over larger and larger segments of the marketplace.

Not only do generic brands now look as fresh and appealing in their packaging as do their name-brand competitors, but they are being carried by even upscale retailers. For example, the 365™ label is the store brand of the upmarket natural food chain, Whole Foods, and is used for products that range from goat cheese to pesto sauce.

Other retailers are promoting generics in multiple tiers, marketing both a basic store brand and a premier store brand, indicating that the generic concept is strong enough to support competition within its own ranks without risking brand cannibalization.

The popular grocery chain retailer Kroger sees store branding as so significant to its success that the company has launched a five-year plan to revamp its approach to generic products, seeking to eliminate any stigma still associated with them, while concurrently being more responsive to the desires of the consumer. The company has gone so far as to create a fictional consumer named “Maria” so that it can better direct its marketing efforts to appealing precisely to Maria’s shopping patterns and preferences.

The creeping influx of private label products has even transcended the one benefit for which generics were first launched, that of price. For many retailers the store brand or private label product is no longer the cheapest product on the shelf, but now competes in other ways, and remarkably holds its own. The appeal of generic brands extends beyond that of price.

Timeshare resales at the online mall

Price matters, whether it is ten cents saved on a can of tomato soup or thousands of dollars saved by buying a resale timeshare. However, consumers buy timeshares as resales not only because of the money they save, but because they like the simplicity of buying online. Online shoppers find it convenient to research products, reflect on their options, engage current owners in conversation, and generally exercise the types of control that make a person feel that his or her decision to buy has been wisely made.

Online, it is easy to compare prices and amenities from one resort to another or one timeshare company to the next, especially when multiple resort properties are aggregated on a single resale website. This feature of buying secondary market timeshare online is becoming more important all the time. When the world was a smaller place, creating and maintaining brand identity was an easier task.

In a typical day, via print and electronic sources, most people are now exposed to no fewer than 1,000 brand messages with the number often reaching as high as 3,000 to 5,000 brand exposures per person, per day. Yet when asked to recall the most memorable new brand they saw promoted over the past year, more than half of all adults are stumped to recall even one new product by name. Well-organized websites featuring multiple timeshare brands help consumers sort through the brand overload from which we all suffer.

In 1974, many grocers thought that discount-priced black and white label generic products would be short lived, in the same way that 25 years later, bookstore owners saw Amazon.com as a fad that would pass. Secondary market timeshare, with all its positives, and all its problems, isn’t going away.

We, as industry professionals, are challenged to offer new collaborative solutions that developers, resellers and consumers will embrace. The timeshare industry must find its “Maria” and listen carefully to what she really wants. Together, we can take what’s working about the resale market and use it as a platform to strengthen the vacation ownership product.

###

Our thanks to The Resort Trades for permission to reprint this article.