Timeshare Trends Blog

Boasting forested mountains, azure seas and sandy white beaches, St. Kitts is the quintessential Caribbean escape. Christophe Harbour Development Company has just released a collection of nine villas of which each is available for 1/10th fractional ownership. The Windswept Villa Club is conveniently located alongside the harbor and overlooking the sea and each villa is a short walk away from the Pavilion Beach Club, which boasts stunning pools, a beachside cabana bar and waterfall showers. The properties also come with concierge services, maintenance, housekeeping and property management. The four-bedroom Windswept villas feature one-story and two-story options, with the one-story villas starting at $411,000 per fractional interest.

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To be located on the northeast side of St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, this planned resort is to be opened in late 2014. The resort will be a complete renovation of the Grand Palace Beach Resort, which is now located on the site planned for Margaritaville. The resort is being developed through a partnership with Margaritaville Hospitality Group and Orlando based, Wyndham Vacation Ownership and will be the first of possibly many Margaritaville Vacation Club resorts. The resort is expected to immerse guests into escapism and an island lifestyle as demonstrated in Jimmy Buffet’s famous music, according to company representatives.

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Located in Calabria, on the “toe” of Italy’s “boot,” the resort is set on a promontory overlooking the Tyrrhenian coast. The timeshare units are part of a larger complex that includes a 68-room hotel and 160 apartments. The Hotel Club Residence La Castellana offers guests a wide variety of on-site amenities, including three large swimming pools, tennis courts, volleyball, there are three restaurants, two bars, a gym, a spa and shopping bazaar. Only a half-mile away, the resort has a privately equipped beach offering a choice of water sports, a restaurant with bar, swimming pool, and live entertainment at the seaside amphitheatre. Calabria is known for its temperate climate and rocky coasts studded with beautiful beaches and natural landscape. The region is rich with churches, monasteries, castles, and palaces where age-old traditions still survive. The nearby town of Belvedere is dominated by an ancient Aragonese castle and is home to two yachting marinas.

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according to the Florida Bar. According to a recent story in the Orlando Sentinel, Uhrig created another law firm outside of his criminal law practice to assist his (non-lawyer) son’s company. The company, Exchange International, allegedly assisted timeshare owners who thought or were informed that they were scammed by resale advertising companies and wanted refunds. The law firm created by Uhrig was known as Resort Advocacy Law, and provided form letters to clients for their use that were misleading.

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on Rosemary Beach in the Florida Panhandle. Overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, the resort is a 55-unit resort with almost all rooms featuring a private balcony, in-room spa products, refrigerator stocked with water and juices, and Kuerig Coffee and Tea Brewing system, as well as complimentary valet parking. Amenities also include the Intelity App enabling guests to book dinner reservations, room service or place concierge requests via an I-Pad available in each unit. The resort is also the first in the nation to offer in-room Apple TVs allowing guests to stream wirelessly from the complimentary high-speed wireless internet.

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a law that may make it harder for timeshare owners to dump unwanted properties. A provision of the law taking effect on July 1, is meant to outlaw controversial re-sale strategies known as “Viking ships.” Under the practice, a timeshare owner desperate to be rid of their unit will pay transfer companies to take the properties off of their hands. If the transfer company is unable to resell the unit, it will dump the timeshare into an otherwise asset-less corporate entity and then stop paying all dues, leaving the original resort with no option but to foreclose and take back the property. The American Resort Development Association has said that Viking ship sales have cost the industry at least $8 million in unpaid maintenance fees. The law also specifies that certain provisions relating to condominium board elections do not apply to timeshares, revises formula requirements for reserves, requires successor in interest to be listed as owner of timeshare interest under certain conditions, requires estoppel letter in certain resale transfer transactions, and requires resale transfer agreements to contain specified information with establishment of escrows for certain purposes, among other changes to restrict controversial resale strategies.

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, which is a step up from last year when the resort won the Gold RCI Green Award. From employee green trainings and weekly beach clean ups, to offering public transportation and using environmentally friendly green supplies, Grand Pacific Resorts tries to exemplify green practices. The resort staff’s green achievements include the reduction of gas usage per occupied room and recycling of over 200 tons of materials last year alone. The Grand Pacific Palisade is located in Carlsbad, California, very close to San Diego and next to Legoland, and is known for offering spectacular views of the Carlsbad Flower Fields and the Pacific Ocean.

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One of Miami Beach’s iconic hotels is poised to make a comeback with new owners. The Blackstone equity group has sold the Miami Beach Resort and Spa for $117 million to the Chetrit group, a top Manhattan real estate investment company Complete renovations for the 1963 hotel are to include 424 guests rooms, public areas and meeting rooms, according to The Miami Herald. Formerly known as the Doral hotel, it is located on the 4800 block of Collins Avenue. It was once a popular location for stars vacationing in Miami and a movie scene location for the 1972 hit film The Heartbreak Kid.

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The five-star resort, which is a popular choice with timeshare owners (LaQuinta at LaManga Club and Club Calida at LaManga), was voted the top resort by readers of Today Golfer magazine for the second consecutive year. The resort received an impressive 45 per cent of the vote, which was 32 per cent more than its nearest challenger. The resort, which opened in 1972, boasts three 18-hole championship golf courses, as well as other sports and leisure facilities and numerous bars and restaurants.

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It’s been another year of upbeat sales in 2012, defying naysayers who predicted the business would fade in the wake of the economic crash. Total timeshare sales increased to $7 billion for 2012, up 7.6 percent from 2011, according to preliminary data from Ernst & Young and presented at the recent ARDA convention. While still far below the $9.7 billion in sales in 2008, industry executives are proudly boasting the resilience of the shared-ownership market. “Some of the things we had to give up, we learned we could do without,” said Don Harrill, chief executive of Holiday Inn Club Vacations and chairman of the American Resort Development Association. “We had to readjust strategies and maybe lose our egos.” The news wasn’t as good for the fractional and destination club industry, which focuses on selling shares in vacation homes. Sales volumes continued to fall, hitting $497 million in 2012, compared to $552 million in 2011. At the peak in 2007, fractionals and clubs generated $2.3 billion in sales. The occupancy rate continues to remain high and has held steady at about 76.9 percent. Though the industry is still feeling the effects of the downturn, which saw business drop by more than 50 percent in two years, ARDA leadership emphasized that challenges have made the industry smarter and more responsive to customers. Developers are offering smaller units and lower price points; they’ve also raised the credit and down payment requirements for buyers, lowering the number of defaults.

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