Timeshare Trends Blog

Marriott’s St. Kitts Beach Club announces its third phase opening.

Marriott Vacation Club International, the vacation ownership division of Marriott International has announced the third phase of St. Kitts Beach Club in the West Indies.

The new addition provides the resort with an additional 22 two and three-bedroom units, adding to the property’s 44 existing units. All units range from 1,400 square feet in size to 2,089 square feet.

Amenities include private balconies with beautiful views, fully equipped kitchens with high-end appliances, and spacious living and dining areas. The Royal Beach Casino is also located right on site.

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The Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas has recently eliminated 800 employees. In a sign of the economic times, the famous resort had to make cuts due to decreased occupancy rates and sales.

The Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas features over 3,000 rooms. This resort is one of the best selling timeshare resorts of all time on the secondary or timeshare resales market. The demand is astounding with people often paying thousands for a one-week stay each year. According to resort officials, a lay off of 800 accounts for about 10% of their staff.

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Grand Solmar at Land’s End Resort and Spa has been added to Interval International’s global inventory. The resort is planned as an exclusive vacation ownership resort in Los Cabos.

Scheduled to begin construction in March, the oceanfront resort will be adjacent to the renowned Arch of Los Cabos at the southernmost tip of the Baja Peninsula. Grand Solmar will include 250 villas with unobstructed views of the Pacific Ocean and its landscaped gardens upon completion.

Phase I of the project will include 104 units that are scheduled for occupancy in winter 2011 and phase II, which will have 96 additional units, is expected to be completed two years later.

The final phase, with 50 units, is slated for occupancy in winter 2015. The villas will feature old world Mexican décor with wood carved furnishings, wrought iron and stone finishes, fully equipped kitchens with granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, spacious living and dining areas, state-of-the-art electronics, Wi Fi Internet access, and private terraces.

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The Royal Mayan in Cancun, Mexico was voted number one in recent surveys of favorite timeshare resorts conducted by the Timeshare Users Group.

Mexico had three resorts voted into the top ten.

Following the Royal Mayan was the St. James Place in Beaver Creek, Colorado; the Trade Winds Cruise Club in the British Virgin Islands; Bluegreen’s Big Cedar Wilderness Club in Ridgedale, Missouri (near Branson); voted number five was the Grand Mayan Nuevo Vallarta in Mexico; the Anfi Beach Club in the Canary Islands was voted number six, followed by the Lawrence Welk Resort Villas near San Diego, California, Marriott’s Cypress Harbour Resort in Orlando was voted number eight; the Pueblo Bonito at Emerald Bay in Mazatlan, Mexico was voted at number nine, and rounding out the top ten was Marriott’s Desert Springs Villas in Palm Desert, California.

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The Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort in Orlando took top honors during the awards gala portion of the recent American Resort Development Association convention.

The timeshare development was named the ARDA Circle of Excellence Project of Elegance, a designation that recognizes a timeshare that exceeds expectations in areas such as resort design and development, sales, management, and owner satisfaction. Other timeshare resorts also received awards in the “resort design” categories.

Among the winners were the Gran Melia Palacio de Isora in the Canary Islands for architecture, the Wyndham Asia Pacific Seven Mile Beach in Tasmania won for site plan design, Marriott’s Ocean Watch Villas in Myrtle Beach won for amenities, the Phoenician Residences in Arizona and the Ridge Tahoe in Nevada won in interior design categories, and the Wyndham LaBelle Maison in New Orleans won for refurbishment.

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Debt-cancellation policies may become a part of owning a timeshare purchased in Florida. Lobbyists for the state’s timeshare industry, according to a recent story in the Orlando Sentinel, are working with the Florida House on a plan that would give resort developers the ability to sell “debt-cancellation” policies as a part of timeshare mortgages.

Supporters say that it would be a valuable tool to help soothe prospective customers leery of making big-ticket purchases in the midst of the worst recession in a generation. Disney World and Westgate Resorts are among the individual developers lobbying for the legislation. The bill has recently advanced in the House and is attached to another bill that ensures that timeshares do not have to pay taxes when rented through exchange providers.

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InnSeason Resorts is expanding in New Hampshire. InnSeasons Resorts has recently received local approval for the final site plan of its Lincoln, New Hampshire River Walk Resort Hotel, wrapping up three years of collaboration between the New Hampshire Division of Environmental Services and the US Environmental Protection Agency.

 The hotel will be located adjacent to Loon Mountain’s latest expansion at South Mountain and part of the InnSeason Resort South Mountain, which is all part of an appealing mix of resort hotel and timeshare units with a marketplace of shops and restaurants.

River Walk is planned as a 170-unit mixed use resort located on 25 acres and will be the only hospitality property in the Loon Mountain area. Included in the development are a 400-seat performing arts theater, conference center, four-season pool, spa, wellness facility, and retail shops. The site is also the current home of the Papermill Theatre, an award-winning professional summer musical theatre that is one of the region’s most popular attractions.

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Holiday Inn is nearing completion on its only ski-in ski-out resort to be located in Vermont. Holiday Inn Club Vacations continues to expand their timeshare resorts and destinations. Not long after Holiday Inn announced their new resorts in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin; Panama City, Florida; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; and Gatlinburg, Tennessee; they followed it with the announcement of a ski-in, ski-out resort at the foot of Vermont’s Ascutney Mountain.

The Ascutney Mountain Resort will be the fourth completed Holiday Inn Club Vacations property as part of the alliance with Orange Lake, with the fifth and sixth resorts joining the brand in April. The Ascutney Mountain resort offers indoor and outdoor pools, a fitness center and spa, an arcade, convenience store, a café and a full service restaurant.

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Despite the recession, hotel giant Marriott International plans to double the size of its timeshare vacation resort near the Las Vegas Strip. Ground is scheduled to be broken sometime this year on the third tower of the Grand Chateau located on Harmon Avenue, and a fourth tower will be developed after that. Plans call for the Grand Chateau to have a total of 895 villas about evenly split between four 37-floor towers. Construction on the first two towers is complete, with some of the towers being rented on a nightly basis.

The Grand Chateau was Marriott vacation club’s highest-grossing property in 2008 with $110 million in sales.

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