Timeshare Trends Blog

The Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts has secured financing for $360 million to build a luxury resort right on Disney World property and will commence construction in December 2011. The 444-room hotel will include a rooftop restaurant with views of the Magic Kingdom and a lazy river water feature, among other amenities, and is expected to open in mid to late 2014. The project will include as many as 40 Four Seasons timeshare units and up to 90 private residences.

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TThree Disney executives with Disney Vacation Club were terminated because of fees charged to new timeshare owners of the Aulani Resort in Hawaii. The resort opened on August 29, but according to a recent Orlando Sentinel article, all timeshare sales for the resort have currently been suspended. The three fired executives include the President of the Florida based company, Senior Vice-President and CFO of Disney Cruise Line and travel operations, and Director of Finance for Disney Vacation Club. It appears that the vacation club executives had calculated dues amounts so low that that they would not generate enough money to cover the resort’s costs.

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Disney has announced the opening of Aulani, a new resort and spa located in Ko Olina, Oahu, Hawaii. August 29, 2011 is the scheduled opening date with major construction having been completed in April. According to Disney reps, the attractions and amenities reflect the importance of Hawaii’s vibrant culture and traditions and they has worked with local historians, artisans and architects in merging Hawaii’s rich history into the resort’s buildings, interior design, art and gardens. The new Disney resort rests on 21 acres of land fronting the ocean, mountain views and magnificent lush grounds. Two 15-story buildings accommodate 359 hotel rooms and 481 two-bedroom villas similar to the Disney Vacation Club. There are two restaurants, a huge 18,000 square foot spa, an expansive lawn for weddings and a conference center. Water activities will also be available through a central swimming pool, 900-foot tube floating watercourse, wading pool, body slides, hot tubs, adult pool, snorkel lagoon and conservation pool.

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Disney Vacation Club is imposing new restrictions on buyers who purchase their timeshares from existing owners rather than directly from Disney. Disney Vacation Club, which sells points that can be redeemed for stays in various accommodations, said it will no longer allow owners who acquire their points via resales to redeem them for nights in conventional hotel rooms at the company’s five theme park resorts worldwide, voyages aboard its cruise ships or vacations through its guided tour operation. Such owners will only be allowed to use their points only for stays in one of its eleven timeshare properties or in third party hotels available through exchange operator RCI.

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According to the Orlando Sentinel, the top business story in Orlando in 2010 was the opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando, which opened in June. As the top business story, Harry Potter was Orlando’s economic salve boosting Universal’s attendance by 37 percent and it put heads in hotel beds for miles around, which had the added benefit of increasing local tourist tax collections by double-digit percentages. Harry Potter also gave Disney World some heartburn because its summer attendance remained flat and in some reports attendance was reported to be down by almost 6 percent. People flocked to town presumably under Harry’s spell.

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Harris Rosen has been inducted into the Florida Tourism Hall of Fame. Announced at the 43rd annual Florida Governors Conference on Tourism, the award was bestowed upon Mr. Rosen for his contributions to the industry. Among his contributions, he supported construction of the Orange County Convention Center, donated 20 acres of land to create and build the University of Central Florida’s School of Hospitality Management, he owns and operates seven properties in Orlando including the Rosen Shingle Creek, Rosen Plaza, and Rosen Centre.

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Wyndham Worldwide Corporation has recently renewed its financing for its Orlando based timeshare operations. According to a recent story in the Orlando Sentinel, Wyndham has stated that the securitized timeshare receivables conduit has a capacity of $600 million, and is renewed through September 2011. Timeshare companies typically use the receivables facilities to turn timeshare buyers mortgage into cash that the companies can use for further development.

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Universal Orlando’s profits are way up thanks to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Universal Orlando has just posted its best quarterly results in its entire 20-year history. Attendance at the resort has soared 36% in the recent third quarter when compared to the same quarter last year, climbing by over one-million visitors to 3.7 million. It is the highest quarterly attendance Universal has reported since Universal Studios opened in 1990 and the biggest percentage gain since its second park, Islands of Adventure debuted in 1999. Universal’s quarterly revenue has rocketed up 62% to $364 million fueled by ticket sales and enormous demand for Potter-themed merchandise. The popularity of the park allowed Universal to raise ticket and parking prices in the middle of the quarter.

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According to a recent Sentinel newspaper report, federal investigators have recovered more than $868,000 in back wages for more than a thousand workers at Central Florida Investments, the Orlando timeshare operator that does business as Westgate Resorts. The US Department of Labor had determined that 1,065 company employees who scheduled tours, officially called “off property consultants” were not paid at least the federal minimum wage for all the hours they worked. The agency also said that workers premium pay did not include commissions, and that overtime was incorrectly computed. The report also indicated that Westgate failed to keep accurate time-card records. According to a Westgate representative, there was no finding by the government of intentional wrongdoing, noting that management of commissioned-based sales people is complex.

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This latest edition to the Bonnet Creek resort has added 300 units to Wyndham’s flagship resort property. The resort is situated on actual Walt Disney World Resort property and now boasts approximately 1,150 units sprawled across 58 acres. “When we broke ground on this project in 2002 we knew we were taking a calculated risk since Orlando was one of the most heavily saturated timeshare markets in the country,” said Franz Hanning, president and chief executive officer of Wyndham Vacation Ownership. “The fact that we continued to expand this site in spite of the current marketplace is a testament to the popularity of both the resort and our points product. We originally intended to build 744 units, but we had to keep on building because we kept on selling.”

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