Timeshare Trends Blog

Timeshare fee recovery companies are sparking complaints. According to a recent article in Orlando Sentinel newspaper, timeshare owners have lost millions to scam companies falsely claiming to line up buyers for their properties. Now the new worry is fee recovery companies that promise to help recover their losses. The Florida Attorney General has received more than 600 complaints in the past year about so-called “timeshare recovery operations”. Independently, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is looking into telemarketing law violations related to several outfits.

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Employees of Timeshare Mega Media in Fort Lauderdale have pled guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. The fraud charge can carry up to five years in prison and all are awaiting sentencing. FBI agents raided the company’s East Oakland Park Boulevard office in July 2010, and the FTC filed a lawsuit against Timeshare Mega Media a few months later. The alleged masterminds behind the company are Pasquale “Posh” Pappalardo, who according to court filings, served more than six years in federal prison in the mid 1990s on drug, firearms and counterfeit money charges, and Joseph “Joey” Crapella, who spent nearly eight years in a Florida prison after being convicted in 2000 of racketeering and grand theft in a scheme involving the sale and stocking of vending machines.

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The Las Olas Beach Club in Cocoa Beach continues to be successful. As featured in a recent Orlando Sentinel story, this resort is completely sold out, their owners are happy, and yet it is based on the old formula from when timeshares first started in the 70s– when timeshare buyers purchased the same week in the same unit at the same resort each year. Now many timeshare companies sell points that may be exchanged for different resorts and weeks at locations around the world. Big developers such as Marriott and Wyndham have crowded out many of the old single site developers. Las Olas with its 28 units and 1,000 owners says it considers their longtime owners to be an extended family and they work with each owner to resolve ownership problems, which is one reason why they continue to be successful. The American Resort Development Association is now looking at some of the best practices of legacy resorts like the Las Olas to utilize in the big development timeshare companies.

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Holiday Inn Club Vacations properties are expanding. The Orlando based company has recently announced that a transaction has been officially closed with Summer Bays Resorts to add two new destinations to the Holiday Inn Club Vacations brand of resorts. The Desert Club Resort in Las Vegas and the Sunset Cove Resort in Marco Island, Florida will become Holiday Inn resorts, Sunset Cove is scheduled to join the brand in October and Desert Club Resort will join in the Spring of 2012. Both properties are “gold crown” resorts and add to six properties already under the Holiday Inn name.

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The Fisherman’s Paradise Resort is scheduled to open on September 9. The resort is actually a boat and is moored 15 miles off the Clearwater, Florida coast. It is a barge that after six years of construction has been converted into a five-story $25 million floating palace and boasts a helipad, marina, two-floor gym, a sports bar, a wine cellar, and a movie theater. It will loop between the Gulf of Mexico, Panama, and Belize and its cost will include a helicopter ride and a charter fishing tour. To check in, guests must dock boats in the barge’s marina and take a shuttle boat or go by helicopter from the St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport.

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The Ritz-Carlton Destination Club and the Abercrombie & Kent Residence Club have unveiled its first of its kind partnership. The two luxury destination clubs have forged a new exchange opportunity for the benefit of their members. This strategic alliance presents members of both clubs an expanding universe of extraordinary destinations that only they can provide. The collaboration allows Ritz-Carlton Destination Club members access to 17 Abercrombie & Kent Residence Club residences in North America. They include Scottsdale, Lake Tahoe, Aspen, South Carolina, Punta Cana, Sun Valley, Jackson Hole, Hawaii’s Big Island, the Turks & Caicos, and Mexico’s Los Cabos, Punta Mita and Puerto Aventuras. In return, Abercrombie & Kent Residence Club Members are able to convert their nights for use at 10 Ritz-Carlton Destination Club locations in Colorado’s Aspen Highlands, Bachelor Gulch and Vail, St. Thomas, Jupiter in Florida, San Francisco and North Lake Tahoe, Hawaii, and Abaco in the Bahamas.

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The Orlando based company that owns the Mystic Dunes Resort and Golf Club in Celebration filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization and plans to sell its properties to Diamond Resorts International. Tempus Resorts lender, GMAC Commercial Finance has stated that it is getting out of timeshare financing. The Tempus Resorts CEO says they are profitable, but filed for bankruptcy because the private-equity company that bought its loan portfolio opposed the sale to Diamond Resorts. The deal will now be reviewed by a bankruptcy judge. Existing timeshare owners would retain Tempus privileges, but could upgrade to the Diamond Resorts

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While highlighting its significant market opportunities and competitive advantages, Marriott International has informed security analysts and institutional investors in New York, that its earnings per share of stock could hit well above the highest earnings achieved during Marriott’s most recent peak earnings year of 2007. The company expects to add at least 80,000 to 90,000 hotel rooms to its portfolio from 2011 through 2013 with additional opportunities for 22,000 rooms to open in Europe and Asia during that same period. Marriott has plans to adapt and expand current brands, such as Courtyard and Fairfield, to meet the growing needs of customers in markets worldwide. The company will also be expanding its new brands outside of the United States, including Edition, which just opened its first hotel on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. Marriott is also successful in the high-end timeshare market.

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Starwood Vacation Ownership has expanded its Sheraton Vistana Villages, located on the south end of world-famous International Drive in Orlando. The current expansion phase includes 200 new villas, a new swimming pool complex, a new recreation building that will house a second fitness center, game room and arcade, as well as an activities desk with sports, pool games and equipment. The Sheraton Vistana Villages is the second Sheraton vacation ownership property located in Orlando. The first property is the Sheraton Vistana Resort, one of the Orlando’s largest timeshare properties.

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Legoland Florida is on schedule to open in late 2011. Legoland Florida will be the world’s largest Legoland Park and is expected to bring Winter Haven back to it tourism heyday when Cypress Gardens was one of Florida’s leading attractions and the first official theme park built in the state of Florida. Legoland Florida is being developed on the site of the long closed Cypress Gardens.

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