2012 AIF World Wide Shared Vacation Ownership Study Reinforces Link Between Owning and Vacationing with Promising Signs for International Growth

The ARDA International Foundation’s (AIF) newest research offers an insight into the international shared vacation ownership industry. Having data on the size of the industry, composition, and performance in regions around the world will be valuable information for our members as growth strategies and product innovations are developed.

With 5,300 resorts in 108 countries, we know that the industry has a significant footprint. But when we look more closely, we learn that global shared vacation ownership supported more than 1.1 million jobs and generated over $45 billion in direct economic output—nearly $114 billion when including indirect and induced impacts.

The study surveyed owners in 24 different countries and found that nearly two percent of households (20 million owner households) own at least one timeshare product, and that 81 percent of owners vacationed in the past year. The global occupancy rate remained strong through the recession and on average trended near 76 percent, outpacing the worldwide hotel industry occupancy rates.
Our three-year analysis revealed impressive stability through a global financial crisis. Sales in 2010 held steady after a 27% drop in 2009. In some regions—particularly Asia, Central and South America, and Africa—sales volume actually increased from 2008-2010.

Resort locations and market representation should not come as a surprise. North American properties represent 46 percent of the total market, followed by Europe with 25 percent, Central and South America with 10 percent, Asia with 6 percent, the Caribbean with 5 percent, Africa with 4 percent, and Australasia (Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighboring islands in the Pacific Ocean) with 2 percent.

The research also found that 80 percent of the properties outside the U.S. offer traditional interval weeks, 28 percent offer biennial products, 27 percent offer points-based products, 27 percent offer trial memberships, 16 percent offer fractional or Private Residence Club ownership products, and 9 percent offer triennial products.

Other findings include data about new ownership and market growth. Future generations of timeshare owners will likely expand to numerous countries, with particular emphasis on Brazil, Russia, India, and China where there is a growing middle class. The survey found that the global industry is diverse in its makeup, resilient, and our owners are optimistic about the industry’s future. For more information, please visit the AIF Section of www.arda.org.

From our Sponsor’s Blog ARDA

The ARDA International Foundation’s (AIF) newest research offers an insight into the international shared vacation ownership industry. Having data on the size of the industry, composition, and performance in regions around the world will be valuable information for our members as growth strategies and product innovations are developed.
With 5,300 resorts in 108 countries, we know that the industry has a significant footprint. But when we look more closely, we learn that global shared vacation ownership supported more than 1.1 million jobs and generated over $45 billion in direct economic output—nearly $114 billion when including indirect and induced impacts.

The study surveyed owners in 24 different countries and found that nearly two percent of households (20 million owner households) own at least one timeshare product, and that 81 percent of owners vacationed in the past year. The global occupancy rate remained strong through the recession and on average trended near 76 percent, outpacing the worldwide hotel industry occupancy rates.
Our three-year analysis revealed impressive stability through a global financial crisis. Sales in 2010 held steady after a 27% drop in 2009. In some regions—particularly Asia, Central and South America, and Africa—sales volume actually increased from 2008-2010.

Resort locations and market representation should not come as a surprise. North American properties represent 46 percent of the total market, followed by Europe with 25 percent, Central and South America with 10 percent, Asia with 6 percent, the Caribbean with 5 percent, Africa with 4 percent, and Australasia (Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighboring islands in the Pacific Ocean) with 2 percent.

The research also found that 80 percent of the properties outside the U.S. offer traditional interval weeks, 28 percent offer biennial products, 27 percent offer points-based products, 27 percent offer trial memberships, 16 percent offer fractional or Private Residence Club ownership products, and 9 percent offer triennial products.

Other findings include data about new ownership and market growth. Future generations of timeshare owners will likely expand to numerous countries, with particular emphasis on Brazil, Russia, India, and China where there is a growing middle class. The survey found that the global industry is diverse in its makeup, resilient, and our owners are optimistic about the industry’s future. For more information, please visit the AIF Section of www.arda.org.

Posted by Perspective Magazine

from Steve Luba
The internet is impacting the industry in a number of ways, both good (new promotional opportunities) and bad (more complaints). What do you think?

from stevetassler…
The bottom line is that the internet is impacting how every industry conducts business in some way. When it comes to Timeshare, as an industry we have been slower to adapt and adjust than any other I can think of, okay perhaps manufacturers of buggy whips haven’t caught on yet either.

The main reason that the resale companies have been so successful so quickly is that they jumped at the chance to do business online in an industry that is easily a decade behind the curve when it comes to interactive marketing. The industry is starting to come around and will catch up very quickly once we decide to make the necessary investments in financial and human resources.

As far as complaints, the power of the internet is largely in its transparency. Embracing this direct communication opportunity with both satisfied and and dissatisfied customers is a critical step to improving the reputation of the industry as a whole. When TripAdvisor started to gain popularity we had several hotel clients that chose to ignore it. They suffered as the clients who JOINED the conversation thrived.

At the end of the day, the answer is this : The internet is not going anywhere so embrace it and use it to your advantage, even if it means stepping out of your comfort zone a little bit.

Join the Discussion with our Conference Partner Perspective Magazine.

Sterling Holiday Resorts India has reported crazy growth figures for fiscal 2012. Is this indicative of growth throughout the region? What’s going on elsewhere – Thailand, Australia?

By Steve Luba of Perspective Magazine

Posted by Jim Sullivan from Mandarin Media

We all want our press releases to go viral. For the wire services to pick them up. For Yahoo to run the news on their home page. For Google to elevate our news prominently on their News homepage. But this rarely happens.

What does happen? Well, according to one recent study by RealWire, four media organizations will run your news. Here’s a link to the study. This seems a credible study. The surveyors looked at 1,044 releases dispatched between Sept. 2010 and March 2011. These releases circulated news by major brands — BMW, Panasonic, Warner Bros., etc.

The RealWire news is all about how social media news releases (SMNRs) will do more for you — three times more for you. And we’re down with that. Increasingly, we’re embedding links to images, podcasts, videos and interviews in our dispatches.

But the shocker, for me, was the 4.1 media placements for a traditional news release. We recently let out a burst of news, traditionally dispatched, that generated 85 media placements. Why? Because it didn’t look like a press release. No purple prose. No self-congratulatory gestures. No quotes that start off, “We are proud…” Nor was anyone in our release “delighted” or “happy.” We also included non-clients in the release.

Eighty-five placements on a single release has never happened with us before. If we land north of 20, we’re thrilled. But 4.1. Geesh. How low can you go?

Posted by Jim Sullivan from Mandarin Media

Nothing, right? Cause you’ve hired them. You pay them money. They work for you. It’s their job to generate media whilst you go about your business. Right?

Actually, nothing could be further from the heart of a healthy relationship between an agency and a client. Unless there’s regular contact between key decision-makers who are vested in the prominence of their business, you’re not going to get very far.

If your agency is responsible, they’ll get you somewhere. They’ll drag you as far as they can with whatever they’ve got. But if you are vested in the campaign, if you are feeding the agency what they need to get out the news about you, then you’re going to make far many more media gains than possible otherwise.

In PR Daily, the first item in a good article entitled ‘9 Tips to Get More From Your PR Resources’ makes this point clear. “Commit the time,” says this writer. She then goes on to reference one PR company that only commits the time if the client itself commits the time.

The alternative is grim. If the agency is coming up with ideas unilaterally, if the client signs off on the ideas but isn’t really engaged by them, then the ideas wither. You can’t make something from nothing. The client actually has to do something for you to promote it.

So what’s required? This: Whoever it is that is persuaded that PR is a very good thing for their company, that person must unequivocally communicate to their people that they have obligations to the agency. Clients pay us. But here’s the counter-intuitive thing about it: They owe us, too.

Posted by Jim Sullivan from Mandarin Media

Last week, Conde Nast Traveler magazine revealed the results of its Reader’s Choice Awards for 2010. We at Mandarin Media were thrilled — three of our clients in Vietnam made the list — but not all that surprised.

I lived in Southeast Asia for three years. Vietnam for two. During that time, a smattering of friends and relatives came to visit. We traveled up and down the country. From the sensory overloaded streets of Saigon to the majestic mountains of Dalat. From the broad beaches of Danang to the spellbinding bay of Halong. And when they got on that plane to return to Australia or America, the parting comment was always on the order of, “I’m so glad I came. I had no idea how beautiful this country was.”

It’s no secret Vietnam is open now in a way that it’s never been before. Those adventurous enough to see it for themselves are never disappointed. Proof is in those Reader’s Choice rankings.

I think it’s cool. Cool that travelers are broadening their horizons. And cool that Vietnam is being recognized for what it’s become, instead of what it once was.

Posted by Jim Sullivan from Mandarin Media

If you’re a hotel, and you’re issuing news like any of the three very brief examples I’m about to share with you, allow me to introduce you to your Achilles’ Heel. Because that’s what you’ve got if you’re in this camp.

One disclaimer before I excerpt these sentences from genuine press releases: These came from internationally renowned hotel groups. Hotels that have won major awards. Hotels that should know better. But I’m not squealing. Poorly conceived news, almost without exception, can plague even the most rarified of hotel groups.

Egregious Example #1: “Youthful, beautiful skin is as far away as the fridge… try these delicious homemade spa recipes. Self care is important for stress management. Giving yourself a spa experience can be a wonderful tension tamer and you can do it yourself.”

Those are the first three sentences of what looks like a press release. I worked as a newspaper editor for 10 years. You know what I did when I got releases like that? From people who cared not a whit about what I needed to get my job done? I trashed their non-news. You’ve got 10 seconds to grab my attention. Make that first sentence mean something. Make it say something I’ll care about.

Egregious Example #2: “We are especially honoured on this occasion to be recognized for our efforts in maintaining the (not going to say) in which (name of hotel) is located.”

You’re honored? Really? You’re issuing news, and this is the best thing you can come up with for your GM to say? Is he that much of a ninny? Come on. Give him or her their due. You’re probably putting the words in his mouth – make them cogent. If you’re going to quote them, give them something intelligent to say.

Egregious Example #3: “Welcome all 10 Finalists Miss (name of country) 2011 to (internationally renown hotel) where they will take place for many memorable activities during (date). And stay (city) during (date).”

My first bit of advice: If you’re issuing news to the press in English, make sure your English works. Second bit of advice: Save your welcome for the ladies.

Communications matters. What you look like in print matters. Why? Because so many media outlets will cut and paste your release as is, and leave you looking like an idiot. The better media outlets will delete you and park your address in their spam lot.

What’s worse, if you don’t care all that much about the integrity of your appearance in print, a prospective visitor is apt to wonder what else about the property you don’t care that much about.

There’s so much West-to-East condescension in the world of golf, it’s easy to dispatch James Hookway’s recent Wall Street Journal story regarding soaring values in the Vietnamese golf club membership market as just another example.

On subjects like this one (or perhaps the oft-bemoaned Chinese exuberance for golf development and the viability of its attendant real-estate), it’s not difficult to get inside the mind of Asian golf entrepreneurs: “Can you believe these Westerners have the gall to overbuild their course stock and component housing, run their own golf markets into the ground, and then lecture us on the dangers?”

Hookway isn’t some Asian greenhorn filing stories from Manhattan. He knows Asia, has been reporting from the region for years, and his points should be well taken. Even he sees value, to an extent, in club memberships — especially with the Vietnamese stock market and foreign investment being so very unpredictable.

But there’s something else to consider here. The Vietnamese government can come off as somewhat reactionary when it comes to golf. Here is another bit of sport in which Western media pundits engage — making light of former communist apparatchiks navigating the quasi-free market.

However, it’s important not to paint with a broad brush an entire administration. Yes, Vietnam’s transport chief recently banned his minions from playing golf, but that was a single department, it was largely symbolic (designed to score internal political points), and no ministers have followed suit.

Yes, every time a golf course is proposed in Vietnam, there is a great waving of hands and talk of shrinking agricultural land, but little of this comes from the government itself. The Vietnamese government cannot be seen overtly sanctioning golf; too much capitalist baggage there. But credit where credit is due: It has done a creditable job enabling course development while regulating its proliferation.

Decision 1946, issued in early 2010, specified development approval for 89 separate golf projects over the ensuing 10 years — a number that includes the 25 or so that were already operational. So, some 60 new golf courses by 2020, in a country the size of California, is hardly a recipe for oversupply.

In other words, it’s not anything like what’s happening in China where total development numbers are far more striking and largely unregulated, in the sense that further course-building is officially banned but routinely enabled by under-the-table land deals between local government functionaries and private developers.

There have been some official additions to the 89 Vietnam courses sanctioned by Decision 1946, but the overall number remains low — and there’s a real question whether developers will even meet this number by 2020. In other words, this quite practical, conservative target also stands to maintain the value of club memberships going forward.

An important dot was left unconnected in a survey published this week in wake of the International Golf Travel Market (IGTM), held Nov. 11-14, in Belek, Turkey. The study reports that 70% of UK golfers are most influenced by friends’ recommendations and “word-of-mouth” when researching golf holidays.

The next most important factors were golf magazines (43%), golf professional recommendations (42%) and online blogs and course reviews (35%).

This makes sense to me, as a golfer, journalist and media executive. “What’s worth playing?” is the question I’m always keen to answer for myself, to answer when searching for story subject matter, and to answer when searching out prospective clients. Mandarin Media counts several of the world’s top resort courses and hotels among its clientele. When serving those clients, we emphasize, “Why is this track worth playing?”

However, a key bit of information — a plea for amplification, if you will — cried out at me from this data. The research — commissioned by Reed Travel Exhibitions, organizers of IGTM, in conjunction with Sports Marketing Surveys Inc. and Golf Monthly magazine — also revealed that more than a third (36.1%) of UK golfers used a social media web site when researching their last golf holiday, while almost half of under-30-year-olds used social media sites for research. TripAdvisor was the most referenced source (26.3%), and among those who consulted social media, a quarter changed the hotel they were due to stay in based on reviews.

Well, TripAdvisor is the only web entity cited in the study where opinions are actually based on primary sources, i.e. people who had actually played the courses and stayed at the hotels.

A story in a golf magazine is no guarantee the writer or editor actually experienced the course. Staff can’t see everything in person… Golf pros are similarly prone to offer opinions/info on courses they’ve not played, especially if someone puts them on the spot. “What do you hear about the new course at Cabot Links, in Cape Breton?” you may well ask your local pro. “Well,” he’s likely to intone, “I’ve read that 11 holes are open and the pictures I’ve seen look fabulous.”

I’m not picking on golf professionals. They’re like everyone else — they rely on the preponderance of what they’ve read and heard to form opinions, in the absence of first-hand knowledge. I daresay that friends offering word-of-mouth recommendations are basing their opinions on the same thing, if they’ve not actually played the course (something one friend can discern from another quite easily).

Further, TripAdvisor reviews of golf courses are few and far between, and we know of several course managers who make a habit of planting those reviews themselves. Not our clients, mind you — it’s MM’s view that these fake testimonials are routinely transparent and, in our view, counterproductive.

So what’s the take-away?

Peter Grimster, IGTM Exhibition Manager, gets part of it: “The implication for destinations and resorts is clear – every visitor can be an ambassador or influencer for your business, so you must ensure that your product, service and customer experience is outstanding and memorable for all the right reasons.”

True enough. But it seems clear to me that most word-of-mouth influencers are not speaking from first-hand experience — they’re gathering their information and forming their opinions based on what they’ve read in magazines, on web sites and within social media portals.

Taking care of and ultimately impressing the golfers you’ve managed to attract to your golf property remains a vital and no-brainer approach to marketing. But marketing a course through the provision of content, the stuff that populates media products and stimulates discussion in social media communities (press releases, course imagery, provision of ready-made features, blogging and active, forthright participation in social media contexts) remains the most practical way to influence both traveling golfers and travel-golf influencers.