Timeshare Trends Blog

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is scheduled to open this spring at Universal Orlando. Currently, the Hogwarts castle is beginning to take shape above Hogsmeade. Hogwarts will be the home of a new, state-of-the-art attraction, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, that uses groundbreaking technology to bring the magic, characters and stories of Harry Potter to life.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter will feature multiple themed attractions, shops and a restaurant. It will be known as a “Theme Park within a Theme Park”. The Harry Potter theme park will open around the same time as the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows movie. This 20-acre theme park built within the Islands of Adventure Park will enable visitors to experience scenes from the books and movies.

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Wyndham Vacation Ownership occupancy through the first half of 2009 increased versus last year at about 75% of its resorts. Wyndham Vacation Ownership headquartered in Orlando, is a division of Wyndham Worldwide.

According to the latest statistics provided by Wyndham, their resort occupancy is slightly up at about 75% of its network of more than 150 resorts worldwide from January through June over the same period as last year. Advanced bookings are also up 3% for the balance of the year. After a tough 2008, it appears that 2009 is trending in the right direction.

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The Orlando area’s hotel occupancy rate has decreased another 6.7% from a year ago despite providing deep discounts. Orlando’s hotels filled 57.5% of their rooms, according to a report by Smith Travel Research, and the decline occurred despite heavy cuts in prices.

The average daily rate fell 14.6% to $91.36. Revenue per available room, a key industry measure fell 20.3% in October. The hardest hit area was International Drive, where the Hilton Orlando opened in September adding 1,400 rooms. Occupancy in the International Drive area fell 9.2% in October despite price cuts of more than 18%

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Timeshare division of Marriott International has hurt earnings. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Marriott International lost $466 million in the recent quarter on hefty impairment charges from its Orlando-based timeshare business, which declined drastically in the recession as vacationers cut back spending.

Marriott lost $1.31 a share for the period ending September 11 compared with a profit of $94 million or 25 cents a share a year earlier. In the recent quarter, adjusted timeshare contract sales declined 42% to $176 million, compared with $49 million in the prior year quarter.

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Wyndham recently announced that its Orlando-based timeshare division issued $350 million in notes backed by timeshare receivables. Tom Conforti, Wyndham’s chief financial officer was quoted as saying that the transactions suggest a steadily improving asset-backed securities market, evidenced by significantly better pricing.

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Disney takes more of the burden of troubled timeshare mortgages from Citigroup. With the growing number of timeshare buyers defaulting on their loans, the Walt Disney Company recently assumed more than $200 in liability to preserve a credit agreement between its timeshare subsidiary and banking giant Citigroup.

The maneuvering involves a 1999 agreement in which the Disney Vacation Club would bundle together timeshare mortgages it issued to individual buyers and sell them to Citigroup. It was a lucrative way for Disney to make money, but Citigroup has virtually stopped buying mortgages from Disney, so in order to maintain an agreement, Disney has assumed more liability and will reacquire trouble Vacation Club loans from Citibank.

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The new Waldorf Astoria Orlando will be opening in October of this year and will have key amenities that will set it apart from its New York counterpart. It will have an 18-hole championship golf course created by course architect Rees Jones. The clubhouse will be completed and open for play on October 1, which is the same day the Waldorf-Astoria and the Hilton Bonnet Creek Hotels will open. Both properties are located close to the award-winning Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort.

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Orlando is the favorite destination according to a survey recently released from the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA). The 2009 summer survey reveals the top 10 vacation choices, and for the seventh year in a row, Orlando and Las Vegas remain the most popular summer destinations booked by ASTA travel agents.

Orlando came out on top with 17.2% of responses and Las Vegas maintained the second spot with 16% of the votes. Orlando and Las Vegas were followed by San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Honolulu, San Diego, Washington (DC), Chicago and New York. While the same cities have remained in the top ten since 2006, their rankings have not. New York, for example, fell again this year from seventh place in 2008 to tenth place after five years in the number three spot from 2003 to 2007. San Francisco, Los Angeles and Miami maintained their spots at numbers three, four and five respectively. Honolulu moved up from number eight to number six in this year’s survey.

When looking at which states see the most summer travelers as booked by travel agents, not surprisingly, Florida again came out on top in 2009, accounting for 20.3% of all responses with cities such as Orlando, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa. Nevada drew the second largest number of responses at 16.1% share with almost all the travel for Las Vegas. California, New York and Hawaii took third, fourth and fifth places respectively. Overseas, the top four international destination cities are London followed by Rome, Paris, and Cancun

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Still on schedule are 50 new units that will open later this year in Disneyland in Anaheim, California, along with three recently opened timeshare properties right in Disney World in central Florida. The ambitious growth in the Disney Vacation Club is coming at a time when sales at the Celebration, Florida based timeshare business fell during the last three months that ended on March 28. It is the first quarterly decline that Disney has recorded in its Disney Vacation Club timeshare arm in several years.

According to the Orlando Sentinel newspaper, this has added more pressure at Disney’s worldwide them park division, which has relied on its vacation club to help fuel its profit growth in recent years. The new resorts in Disney World in Florida include the Kidani Village, Treehouse Villas, and Bay Lake Towers. In Anaheim, the Villas at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa is on schedule, the resort in Hawaii remains under construction and is scheduled to open in 2011. Finally, Disney has purchased 15 acres just outside Washington DC with plans to build a family resort and timeshare units.

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Disney timeshare’s newest accommodations are open at the Disney Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida. The Kidani Village, is an extension of the timeshare lodging already available at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. The timeshare resort’s name comes from the Swahili word for “necklace” and references the physical layout of the resort.

Of the 340 timeshare units that are part of the resort, approximately 60% are now in use. The remaining units are scheduled to be available by the end of the summer. The property will feature nearly 350 timeshare units at build-out. Amenities include a restaurant that serves African cuisine infused with the flavors of India, a water-play area, and the Samawati Springs Pool that features a 128-foot water slide and two whirlpool spas. Other amenities include a pool bar, merchandise shop, room service, fitness center, arcade, community hall, tennis courts, and valet parking. Units consist of every size from studio, to two-story, three-bedroom grand villas. Occupancy ranges from four to twelve adults.

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