According to information released by Wyndham Timeshares and Resorts, the United Arab Emirates is undoubtedly one of timeshare’s hottest markets. “It is expected that Middle Eastern residents will spend an estimated $1.2 billion a year on shared ownership properties by 2020…” says Wyndham timeshare in a recent media release.

The company makes it clear that the problems in the US economy will not create problems for Wyndham Worldwide, which not only owns Wyndham timeshare, but is the parent company for Group RCI timeshare exchange. And they credit much of their optimism to the sunny predictions specifically for Middle East timeshares.

Wyndham Timeshare CEO Speaks at Dubai Tourism Summit

Chairman and CEO of Wyndham Worldwide, Steve Holmes, is also the vice chair of the World Travel and Tourism Council. Holmes was part of the panel on “Travel and Tourism - It’s Good and Getting Better” that met this week during the Global Travel and Tourism Summit in Dubai. Holmes explains, “Travel and tourism continues to be a stable and growing industry around the globe… We have seen that when it comes to taking time off, people will adjust their travel plans to fit their budgets, but rarely cancel their vacations altogether.”

Wyndham timeshare’s position is that historically they have benefited from people tightening their wallets because many of the products they offer are in the mid-price and economy segment. Holmes sounds sympathetic but not empathetic when he says, “While we would like to see the US economy rebound, our company is well poised to succeed, even in this economic environment.”

Last week, The Timeshare Owners Blog reported on the partnership of Group RCI and Al Ghaith Holdings to operate timeshare exchange at the Bavaria Executive Suites timeshare resort. Two days ago we looked at Marriott timeshare announcing Marriott Vacation Club Dubai Festival City. If the predictions hold up, you can expect to continue to hear a lot of positive news about Dubai and United Arab Emirates timeshares in the months to come here on our blog.

Resort Condominiums International, (RCI) has entered into an agreement with ICE Gallery Asia Pacific, in a plan to offer RCI timeshare exchange members in Asia a choice of over 10,000 cruise itineraries from leading cruise lines.

While a recent article in CNNMoney.com says that these new extensive cruise exchange opportunities currently are available only to RCI members in Asia, one has to wonder whether they will soon be available to all members that rely on RCI for their timeshare exchange or banking of timeshare points and unused timeshare weeks.

The CNN Money article (published April 7, 2008) says, “RCI members will be able to exchange their vacation week or RCI Points® towards the purchase of up to four cabins at cruise exchange pricing plus only one transaction fee on selected cruises, depending on the type of cruise, cabin, date and destination. Alternatively, RCI Members and their family and friends can avail themselves of member-only special rates should they opt to purchase a cruise holiday outright through RCI, instead of exchanging their week or RCI Points.”

More Cruise Options for More Timeshare Owners

ICE is a leading worldwide cruise and leisure organization that specializes in value-added cruise programs, internet marketing solutions, and tech solutions for travel alliances between corporations, resorts, cruise lines and vacation suppliers. ICE will manage and operate the RCI Cruise program and they will provide cruise benefits and products to RCI timeshare exchange members. The partnership with ICE will enable some RCI timeshare exchange members to book or exchange timeshare for cruises through many of the biggest names in the cruise business, including Cunard, Holland-America Line, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Princess, Disney Cruises, Celebrity, and Carnival Cruises.

Cruise vacations are growing in popularity worldwide. The World Cruise Shipping Industry to 2020 Report predicts that, world cruise passenger globally will reach 18 million by 2010, 22.6 million by 2015 and 27 million by 2020. With more timeshare owners gaining rights to exchange timeshare for a wider array of cruise products, who knows how high these numbers could grow?

As always, as I learn more about this program, I will share what I learn here in the Timeshare Owners Blog.

Earlier this month, Resort Condominiums International, known as RCI, announced an agreement with Al Ghaith Holdings regarding the Bavaria Executive Suites timeshare resort. Al Ghaith Holdings is a leading timeshare resort development company, based in Dubai. The new agreement will make the Bavaria Executive Suites timeshares part of RCI timeshare exchange.

RCI Timeshare Exchange Helps Shape the Face of Dubai Timeshare

RCI has played an integral role in bringing timeshare resorts and vacation ownership to Dubai. RCI, along with many timeshare developers has worked with regulatory agencies and lawmakers to assist in creating timeshare legislation that protects both the timeshare company and the timeshare buyer, while safeguarding Dubai’s cultural considerations and traditions. Nick Turner, managing director of Group RCI Middle East, commented on the forethought Dubai has demonstrated in preplanning its entry into the timeshare market, saying, “This aims to be well thought through and protects the interests of the consumer, developer, and brand of Dubai.”

The Bavaria Executive Suites will consist of two condominium towers, with a minimum of 450 one and two bedroom apartments. As the first timeshare resort on Shiekh Zayed Road, one tower will flank each side of the highway, giving the property prime access to Dubai’s new commercial and residential hub, and a location adjacent to Dubai Media City and the access route to the Palm Jumeirah. The timeshare resort will be conveniently close to the Mall of the Emirates, Jumeirah beach, golf courses, and many of the city’s attractions and business destinations.

The timeshare resort will include eight restaurants, sports centers, the newest Anagsana Spa, and a shopping arcade. As proof that the timeshare company hopes to attract both business travelers and vacationers, the Bavaria Executive Suites will include 40 fully equipped offices and a meeting center that can be configured to accommodate between 10 and 1000 business people.

The Future of Dubai Timeshare Sales

Dubai has aggressively committed to becoming a global destination for luxury vacations and tourism, yet has embraced timeshare real estate in a cautious and deliberate manner. Dubai is in the enviable position of being able to observe the smart moves and the errors made by other countries in regulating timeshare sales and timeshare resales and avoid mistakes others have made in the past.

People who want to buy timeshare or who are already timeshare owners should keep their eye on timeshare sales in Dubai…it could easily become one of the world’s top timeshare vacation destinations in the near future.

Most people understand the concept of timeshares, even if they don’t know all the fine points. They realize that you can either jointly own a timeshare condo with many other owners or own the privilege of vacationing for a specific number of weeks in that timeshare condo. Some timeshares are deeded property ownership while other timeshares are based on the sharing of time at the vacation resort rather than the sharing of the real estate itself. Either way, the product qualifies as a timeshare, even when it is called a vacation club or vacation ownership.

What Makes a Timeshare A Timeshare?

Timeshares can be found in a range of sizes, from efficiency or studio rooms to 3 and even 4-bedroom timeshare units. Locations vary; some of them are great getaway retreats, some are urban timeshares, and others put you in the heart of a high-demand tourist destination.

Looking at Fractionals

While these qualities are all (typically) true of fractionals, as RCI explains, “The major difference between timeshare and fractional ownerships is money.” Fractionals - for good reason - cost more to purchase than do timeshares.

A fractional may be a condominium, or it may be a detached home. And the perks that come with fractionals can be amazing. Benefits like the use of a luxury car, the services of a private chef, or storage for your personal possessions between visits, may come as part of your fractional ownership.

Another important distinction of fractional properties is that they typically are built in locations that are so high-demand, only the uber-wealthy can afford to own them as sole owners. Fractionals can be found at the top ski resorts and on beachside property that is simply too valuable to be sold to a single owner.

Timeshare typically is owned in one-week intervals, although one owner may own multiple weeks. Fractionals, however, usually involve owning at least a month and can be up to 3 or 4 months of time, although not necessarily consecutive weeks or months.

RCI’s list of similarities between timeshare ownership and fractionals is not conclusive, but it does identify some of the commonalities of the two.

Timeshare and fractional can both be:

• Bought as deeded properties.
• Rented out to others during periods of non-use.
• Shared among family and friends.
• Resold at any time.
• Willed to kin. (Or I might add, willed to anyone else to whom you would like to leave it.)

At this time, someone who is trying to sell you a multi-million dollar fractional is unlikely to refer to it as a “timeshare”, but the fact is, the concept is basically the same. Right now, it is typically difficult to find fractional ownership properties under $100,000, with many being priced into the millions. But remember that the lines between timeshares and fractionals are already blurry, and they are only likely to become more so in the future.

To learn more about timeshare ownership, timeshare resales, and fractionals contact the timeshare specialists at Sell My Timeshare NOW. And watch the Timeshare Owners Blog this week for more posts on the topic of fractionals.

Dial An Exchange Timeshare Exchange is expanding their offerings to timeshare owners with the addition of timeshare travel insurance provided by CSA Travel Protection.

The travel insurance will be available to timeshare owners to purchase when they exchange their vacation weeks. Fermin Cruz, VP North American operations Dial An Exchange, says, “When combined with our Cancellation Protection Option, we believe that CSA travel insurance is the perfect complement to any exchange transaction, offering the DAE member an inexpensive, yet valuable protection to cover their entire vacation experience.”

Les Maine, CEO of CSA Travel Protection says, “By purchasing travel insurance from CSA when exchanging or banking their timeshare with Dial An Exchange, timeshare owners can protect themselves from losing any of their vacation time already purchased as well as annual maintenance fees.”

Dial An Exchange Timeshare Exchange was founded in 1997. The company’s website says it is the largest privately owned timeshare exchange company with worldwide destination availability. Not only is there no charge to timeshare owners to be a member of Dial An Exchange, but timeshare exchange fees are not charged until the actual exchange is made.

Last week, in a blog post titled, Expansion of SFX Timeshare Resort Exchange Company, the Timeshare Owners Blog told you about the expansion and new services of San Francisco Timeshare Exchange. Like Dial An Exchange, SFX offers timeshare owners another choice in timeshare exchange or banking timeshare for future use or exchange.

RCI and Interval International are well known, but smaller timeshare exchange companies are really claiming a portion of the timeshare resort market, and in many cases, offer service that is as good as or better than the larger timeshare exchange companies offer.

If you have had a good experience or a poor one with a smaller timeshare exchange company, please leave your comments on the Timeshare Owners Blog. No one has better insights about timesharing than timeshare owners who are using their timeshare weeks or exchanging them on a regular basis. We’d love to hear your comments.

When you want to sell timeshare and you put your vacation property on the market as a timeshare resale, it may surprise you which features make it most attractive to people looking to buy timeshare. The rule is the same for timeshare real estate, as it is for residential homes, commercial property, and vacation housing: location-location-location.

Timeshare at highly sought vacation destinations is attractive to people interested in timeshare condo resales and vacation club memberships. But timeshare resales have one huge advantage over other types of real estate when it comes to the subject of location because so many timeshare resorts offer exchange privileges at other resorts, or through timeshare exchange memberships like Interval International and RCI timeshare. In fact, frequently, when people buy timeshare, they look for properties - not at the destination they want - but at a destination where they think other people will want to make a timeshare exchange.

The second factor that strongly affects salability of timeshare resales is the dates or time of the year you own. Many people who buy timeshare must plan their travel and vacation dates around school calendars. However, despite the fact that timeshare sales are increasing rapidly among younger buyers, the largest market for the purchase of timeshare weeks is still among Baby Boomers - the demographic that is the least likely to be concerned about school holiday schedules.

Of course, the features and amenities that your timeshare resort offers, also makes a big difference with attracting people to buy your timeshare resale. Beachside access always attracts buyers, as does a location near popular ski sites. But also attractive are what is known as “drive to” destinations, which may not be on the beach or near the slopes, but do offer the advantage of being geographically located within easy driving distances for large populations of people.

At the resort, it has long been the standard that location at a golf course or with golf access makes timeshare resales more desirable. But according to recent information released by M.I.C.E, (an acronym for MEETING - INCENTIVE - CONFERENCE - EXHIBITION , a professional organization for meeting and event planners) interest in tennis between the years 2000 and 2005 increased by more than 12 percent. According to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, tennis is experiencing the highest growth rate of the 114 traditional sports tracked in the United States. So if your timeshare resale offers tennis courts on property or nearby, be sure to make that point known to potential buyers. In these tighter economic times, the cost of playing tennis as compared to the cost of playing golf, is bound to be a consideration by some vacationers.

For more information about the easiest and most effective way to sell timeshare, visit the timeshare resales experts at Sell My Timeshare NOW.

Again today, I am bringing you Nevada timeshare resort news. The Thunderbird Lodge Timeshare Resort in Sparks, Nevada (the Tahoe area) is now officially part of the RCI network of timeshare exchange.

The Thunderbird Lodge has one and two-bedroom timeshare condos, and is located conveniently near the Sparks Marina. The property includes a swimming pool, is adjacent to an 18-hole golf course, and offers timeshare owners the opportunity to enjoy both water sports at the marina and snow skiing in the nearby mountains.

Thunderbird Lodge timeshare is part of Q M Resorts, which is based in Sparks, and also includes The Ridge Sierra Timeshares in Stateline, Nevada; North Lake Lodges and Villas in Incline, Nevada; Tahoe Chaparral Timeshares at the base of Diamond Peak Ski Resort; and the Victoria RV Park.

Sell My Timeshare NOW has Thunderbird Lodge timeshare resales and Thunderbird Lodge timeshare rentals as well as timeshare resales and timeshare rentals at The Ridge Sierra Timeshare, and at North Lake Lodges and Villas Timeshare.

Group RCI, is part of Wyndham Timeshares and the Wyndham Worldwide corporation offer its members timeshare exchange opportunities at approximately 60,000 timeshare resorts in over 100 countries.

The newest issue of TimeSharing Today Magazine, includes a letter from Lori Card-King, who is the vice president of Quality Assurance for Interval International timeshare exchange. Ms. Card-King is responding to a letter TimeSharing Today received from a reader who had questions about Interval International’s exchange policy.

My summary of both letters may give you more insight into the thinking behind policies at timeshare exchange companies and the viewpoint of timeshare owners who question the policies.

The timeshare owner’s position was that when she needed to cancel her timeshare vacation within seven days of the travel date, it was unfair for Interval International timeshare exchange to refuse to let her select another timeshare interval at a future date against her banked timeshare week. The timeshare owner acknowledged that Interval International not only kept her banked week and refused to let her make a future exchange but also charged her a fee for the cancellation. While the timeshare owner had no objection to paying the fee, she did object to having to forfeit all possible exchange against her banked week.

Interval International timeshare exchange’s explanation was that last minute cancellations often result in unused timeshare weeks because no one else is able to make travel arrangements fast enough to use the timeshare interval. II pointed out that they try to protect their members by refusing to accept banked or deposited timeshare for dates that are less than two weeks in the future, and not permitting exchanges with less than 7 days notice.

When you hear both sides, you can see that the timeshare owner and the timeshare exchange company each raise good points and TimeSharing Today did a good job of showing both sides of the issue when they printed the two letters side by side.

One option that was recommended was for the timeshare owner to purchase insurance from Interval International for just this reason. The timeshare owner also pointed out that two other timeshare exchange companies with which she had dealt, do allow you to still exchange for another week, even if you make a last minute cancellation. These two companies are: RCI and Donita’s Dial An Exchange.

In the past, I have listed the names of several timeshare exchange companies here on the Timeshare Owners Blog, but maybe it is time to do it again. The Timeshare Owners Blog does not endorse or recommend any particular timeshare exchange company, because different ones are best suited for different vacation patterns and individual needs.

Last month RCI (Resort Condominiums International) timeshare exchange announced a strategic alliance with LeisureLink, which followed the September news that RCI was making a substantial financial investment in the LeisureLink company.

LeisureLink is the company behind the electronic distribution of many vacation rentals, condo-hotels, (or condotels), and timeshares via several of the online travel sites as well as traditional travel agencies.

Kenneth May, (who at the time of the announcement was chairman and CEO of Group RCI) said, “Our alliance with LeisureLink underscores our belief in the non-hotel vacation accommodation experience and our commitment to grow this segment. We now have a distribution arrangement that is focused on properly marketing the advantages of this type of vacation accommodation. With their technology, we’ll be able to provide a turn-key program for our affiliates and inventory providers to bring a vast array of rental properties to the online travel market faster and easier than before.”

What does this mean for timeshare owners?

Well, it certainly seems that RCI timeshare exchange company is focusing even more of its time, energy and finances on being RCI timeshare rental company. It also implies that RCI members, on some level, will be competing with all vacationers (whether they are RCI members or not) for the same great deals in timeshare vacations. And it absolutely begs the question of how available timeshare exchange options will be through RCI, when the company has the opportunity to rent the primo vacation destinations and vacation times, and tell timeshare owners, “Sorry, there is nothing available for exchange at the location (or date) you want.”

Am I speculating? YES. But since this all came into place, Kenneth May has stepped down from RCI (effective on November 2, 2007), leaving even more confusion about the direction and intent of RCI.

So now would be a great time for someone from RCI to contact us, end my speculation, and let us know that they aren’t forsaking timeshare owners who are members of RCI exchange in favor of the opportunity to mass market timeshare rentals.

Remember, as a timeshare owner, you do have options. You can choose not to be a member of any timeshare exchange company. You can exchange only within a limited network of resorts operated under the same brand. You can also look into smaller timeshare exchange companies, where many timeshare owners choose to be members because they feel they get a more personal level of service.

And in the end, RCI’s ability to court the general public as timeshare rental customers will be greatly impacted by the inventory they are able to maintain of RCI member’s timeshare exchange properties. All we can do is wait and see how well (or how badly) this turns out for timeshare owners who are members of RCI.

The 110 Congress has proclaimed the week of November 11 through November 17, 2007, as “National Veterans Awareness Week” and Americans will celebrate both tomorrow, November 11, as the actual Veteran’s Day holiday and Monday, November 12, as the government and banking holiday.

Originally called Armistice Day, Veteran’s Day was first celebrated in 1919, to mark the one-year anniversary of the end of World War I.

Across the US, parades and celebrations will honor our past and present military personnel. Whatever we do, it won’t be enough to acknowledge the tremendous price paid by veterans and their families to protect the freedoms of this nation.

The US government Veteran’s Day website has a list of many of the festivities scheduled for tomorrow and Monday. Also, don’t be surprised if you see many former service men and women proudly wearing their military awards this Veteran’s Day. The Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Gordon H. Mansfield, has called on America’s 24 million veterans to show their support of the men and women currently serving overseas, by wearing their military decorations on Veteran’s Day.

A Special Timeshare Offer for America’s Military Veterans

Resort Condominiums International-RCI-offers a timeshare vacation program called, Veterans Holidays. As a way to say “thank you” to the men and women who have served in the US armed services, RCI makes timeshare vacations available (on a space available basis) at discount rates at timeshare resorts worldwide.

Many timeshare owners are unaware of this program, which is available to anyone age 21 or older who is on active duty, retired, or honorably discharged or separated from either the Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, NOAA, or Public Health Service. Also eligible is anyone age 21 or older who is on active duty, retired, or honorably discharged or separated from the National Guard or Reserves, or is a current or retired employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the Veterans Administration, or is an employee or member of an organization with an assigned Veterans Organization Number (VON).

For more information on Veterans Holidays visit:
http://www.veteransholidays.com/html/vh_ProgramInformation.asp

To learn more about the opportunities in timeshares and timeshare resale, visit the website of Sell My Timeshare NOW.