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Timeshare: Where is the industry headed?
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I resumed my timeshare column one year ago today, so let me take a look back at a fascinating year in timeshare and vacation ownership.
First, I'm thinking it is a bad omen for the timeshare industry whenever I begin my column. The original column in the San Francisco Examiner began the last couple of weeks of August, 2001. And we all recall what happened a couple of weeks later.
I should point out, that unlike the travel industry at large, the September 11 attacks had little long term impact on the timeshare industry. People stopped traveling by air as much in the short term, as much because of the long security lines, but sales and usage took only a momentary downturn. Folks just visited resorts closer to home.
"Do you have a sense of where the timeshare industry is headed in general? We are looking for definitive information that the industry is (or can be) a viable and healthy one for developers. Perhaps you can point me in the right direction."
In the year since I resumed active coverage, after a hiatus involving personal family issues, it's been as impactful as any the industry has seen.
I return to a landscape that more than ever is dominated by the branded hospitality flags than ever, tremendous growth and diversification in the fractional world, and more.
And then the financial crisis hits the entire country, and the impact the frozen credit markets had on the timeshare industry was paralyzing.
At the same time, an operator of a fractional in North Carolina ask this intriguing question:
"Do you have a sense of where the timeshare industry is headed in general? We are looking for definitive information that the industry is (or can be) a viable and healthy one for developers. Perhaps you can point me in the right direction."
Certainly, I have opinions. But instead, I've tossed the question to a number of other industry experts in my extensive rolodex. Over the next few days I will share some of their replies.
And here's to a less interesting second year.
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