14 Q1/Q2 2013

Innovation created timeshare – and now timeshare is innovating to meet the needs and expectations of a drastically different consumer. DAVE THACKERAY reports.

A recent report on shared ownership (MMGY Global Shared Resort Real Estate Ownership 2012: A Market Perspective) says the average age of a prospective timeshare purchaser is 42. Which suggests it’s the Millennials and their radically different attitudes – both to brands and ownership – that your marketing campaigns should be speaking to.

Sally Burnett, President, Customer Insight Group, said: “Your company is no longer in control of your brand. The customer has decided what your brand stands for, and they’re telling friends and strangers.

“They’re driving the message about what your brand stands for. As a marketer you have to influence that, and be part of the conversation by providing information that others can share.”

Altogether this seismic shift in the playing field has demanded timeshare developers set sights on new tools, techniques and territories. Though the essentials remain the same – finding the right prospect at minimal marketing cost, making the sale through credibility and transparency, getting your

owners to champion your resort and bring referrals through your door using word of mouth marketing.

DIGITAL DIRECTIONIf you’re accustomed to harnessing traditional channels to reach prospective owners, finding your feet in the digital world can be an intimidating prospect.

To give its affiliates maximum advantage in reaching the growing internet community, RCI has developed an online tour generation platform building on the exchange company’s solid brand reputation.

Julia Geffner, RCI’s Vice President of Marketing, said: “EndlessVacationRentals.com enables us to help affiliates build their pipeline of tours and bring a younger generation of prospects into the sales centres in a transparent and engaging way. This generation is sceptical of being solicited on sidewalks or receiving a phone call saying they have won a vacation package.”

Marketing for a new age

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EndlessVacation Rentals.com enables us to help affiliates build their pipeline of tours and bring a younger generation of prospects into sales centres.

Julia Geffner

RCI VENTURES 15

all maintenance fees, could be a solution.

St David’s Vacation Club has the dual distinction of being the first timeshare resort in Wales –

and the first property to work with The Timeshare Channel.

Director David Lloyd, a former hotelier, turned what was a rental complex into 17 timeshare units in 1984. Located on the Pembrokeshire peninsula, the resort was a big hit and sold out three years later.

Lloyd said: “We sold 50-year leases on the basis we believed it was sufficient tenure to give a sense of real ownership. On reflection, 30 years would have been better.

“If you lose out on maintenance fees you’re not going to be able to maintain the high standards your owners expect. You’ve got to have full ownership.”

Lloyd admitted he was initially sceptical about working with The Timeshare Channel. He said: “We were very wary of getting involved with external salespeople, having only ever sold timeshare ourselves. We were anxious that they should share culture and ethics, and we discovered they did.

“We’re only doing it for weeks where problems have arisen. It’s a limited but hugely important programme for the future health of the resort.”

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RCI invests heavily in search engine marketing to drive qualified leads to its website, creating a steady tour flow going back to affiliated resorts. So far the initiative is reaping major rewards with affiliates reporting tour flow growth of up to 30 per cent.

“It’s very transparent. The guest selects how many days, and what they want included in the package – from theme park tickets to spa experiences – and there’s a button on the page saying it’s such a great rate because you’re taking a resort tour,” explained Geffner. “Transparency is essential to modern buyers.”

EndlessVacationRentals.com

PRODUCT RE-PACKAGINGThe timeshare product continues to be popular among baby boomers, but like the younger buyers coming on stream, they are looking for shorter-term ownership.

Products such as The Timeshare Channel’s package, which includes five years’ ownership and

SALLY BURNETTPresident, Customer Insight Group

JULIA GEFFNERVice President of Marketing, RCI

16 Q1/Q2 2013

LASTING ENGAGEMENTIn timeshare, it’s known as rescission – when a new owner feels they made the wrong decision. Since the introduction of the 14-day cooling-off period, having a dedicated new customer engagement plan is essential.

“The customer engagement plan should start from the point of purchase of the timeshare through the first use,” said Burnett, who addressed delegates at last year’s Resort Development Organisation conference on the power of social media to engender loyalty.

Burnett said creating a series of newsletters to reaffirm the new customers’ wise purchase decision is a method to consider as part of any engagement strategy during those early days of ownership.

SEEING IS BELIEVINGA knack for spiriting the sense of delight and passion for vacation back into the equation once the new owner returns home is what helped Group Impact win the contract to create an anti-rescission video for Disney Vacation Club. It’s a major coup for the Northamptonshire business, because as CEO Steve Pentland explained: “Disney is the world’s most famous producer of film based on emotion.”

Whatever the methods you use to market the product, it’s important to bear in mind that with a craving for evolved technology, consumers are equally expecting an evolved product.

Said Pentland: “At the end of the day, marketing is one thing, but the product itself needs a fundamental shift. I think it needs to be shorter, a more flexible

length to suit the customer, and there absolutely has to be an exit option.”

By comparison to timeshare, the fractional market is immature – which means there are many opportunities for those developers who offer the highest levels of resort quality and customer service. Companies like Regency Resorts are already enjoying significant success offering fractionals, and it’s a product also on the agenda for Onagrup Hotels & Resorts in the near future.

Onagrup Sales Manager Gerardo Maccio told RCI Ventures: “Quality and service are at the heart of everything we do. As well as innovating our product mix by working on offering fractional ownership in the future we are continuously searching for new destinations so that our partners can continue to enjoy a good holiday of ‘quality’, focused mainly on resorts on the Portuguese coast and Canary Islands.”

REFEROnce you’ve got prospects pouring through your door, discovered the sweet spot in your needs discovery to close the sale and successfully

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St David’s Vacation Club

on the Pembrokeshire peninsula in Wales is selling contemporary short-term products to help combat

maintenance fee collection issues and maintain standards at a resort that has been sold

out for more than 25 years.

The customer engagement plan should start from the point of purchase of the timeshare through the first use.

Sally Burnett

RCI VENTURES 17

negotiated customers through the cooling-off period, it’s time to apply everything you’ve learned to your sustainable sales strategy – referrals.

The resorts with the greatest customer relationships consistently win when it comes to word of mouth marketing. Regency Resorts estimates up to 40 per cent of new sales come from referrals.

One company that’s ticking all the boxes of building relationships and adding value to the social ecosystem is Hilton. It uses @HiltonSuggests on Twitter as a virtual concierge for anyone going on holiday, anywhere. It doesn’t focus on Hilton, but on helping.

Having someone with responsibility for the social channels is a prerequisite – but the smartest operators are putting social networking into different roles across the organisation to ensure expertise is available when specialised queries are being aired.

THE NEW MARKETING TOOLKITWhen it comes to building effective customer relationships, you can’t afford to forget social networking – because if you do, you can be sure someone else is influencing your new owners.

Burnett told RCI Ventures that more than 40 per cent of people turn to social networks as their first point of contact for social media requests. With Twitter you can ramp up your customer service efforts, and with email you can deliver messaging that reinforces your commitment to your owners.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo told delegates at the

2012 Internet Advertising Bureau’s Engage conference that the company was processing half a billion Tweets daily – and chances are, you’re

already involved.RCI launched the

Timeshare Online Listening Centre (see story, page 7)

at the American Resort Development Association (ARDA)

conference last year. Already affiliates and ARDA itself are using the service

to learn about discussions in which they’re featured – anywhere on the internet.

RCI’s Geffner said: “Innovation is at the heart of what we stand for; we’re here to help our affiliate partners to change and evolve to adapt

and grow in the new marketplace.“We all know it’s changing, but we haven’t

all taken action yet. Five years from now it’s going to be very different and RCI is doing

everything it can to provide affiliates with the tools and solutions to be prepared.”

WHERE ARE THE BUYERS?Marketers playing the long game have unlocked major rewards in Russia. Using independent agents selling trial packs in the former Soviet Republic, Mark Akkerman’s team of Premier Holiday reps convert up to 60 per cent of prospective clients at resorts across Tenerife, Mallorca and Montenegro.

Akkerman said: “These people have money, they’re receptive to timeshare, and they love holidaying as a family. It’s a great combination and a great product for them.”

Relaxed visa requirements have opened the floodgates to Russians travelling further afield than their usual holiday destinations. As an increasingly affluent consumer they are demanding more for their money, and from their holiday experience.

“You can’t put them in a small unit and tell them they’ll be buying into a show apartment. They don’t believe in showrooms – they want to experience what they’re buying into,” said Akkerman, who has 18 years’ experience selling to Russian families.

Having faith – and heritage – in nations only now truly awakening to timeshare has been a priceless asset for Premier Holidays, as it has been for Regency Resorts and its Marketing Director Eivind Steffensen.

From the Nordic countries, when the company was created a quarter-century ago, Central and Eastern Europe, through the Baltic nations and the Balkans, Regency has fostered successful alliances with sales agents and established tour operators

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The Regency Club near Playa

de las Americas in Tenerife is one of five luxury properties that belong to the

family of Regency Resorts. The company sells fractional as well

as timeshare products, and estimates that 40 per cent

of new sales come from owner referrals.

STEVE PENTLANDCEO, Group Impact

DAVID LLOYDDirector, St David’s Vacation Club

MARK AKKERMANCo-owner, Mediaset Consulting

18 Q1/Q2 2013

RCI Europe Regional Director Vassilis Themelidis said all eyes are on Eastern Europe – specifically Poland, Czech Republic, Russia and Lithuania – for growth in shared-ownership sales, thanks mainly to a rapid rise in the middle class population.

Themelidis added: “We will not necessarily see resort development in these countries, but they will act as source markets for existing developers mainly in the south of Europe. We are already seeing these nationalities travelling heavily over recent years in destinations like Malaga, Greece and Cyprus.”

CHANGING TIMES OF TIMESHARENine years ago Malta-headquartered Marketing And Promotion Limited (MAP) was 100 per cent OPC. “Now it’s about two per cent – prospective buyers are more savvy than ever before and do not respond well to being stopped in the street by an OPC,” said MAP’s Sales and Marketing Director Richard Alden.

“Many consumers are concerned with the techniques used by OPCs to get them to attend sales presentations and we found that over the years this programme greatly lost its effectiveness, not to

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such as Neckermann, and developed affinity marketing strategies to reach millions of prospective owners. With referral programmes generating up to 40 per cent of new sales, it’s the on-site experience that makes the difference.

“Eastern Europeans sometimes approach new destinations with trepidation – they were typically accustomed to holidaying close to home, in places like the Croatian coast, Lake Balaton in Hungary and Black Sea destinations,” said Steffensen.

“We smooth the way at Regency Resorts with reps talking their language, and available 24 hours a day. They are there to help our guests plan their holidays and will often go out on excursions with them to make sure they get the very best from their holidays.”

Regency has embraced the changing face of timeshare products by offering a range of options, from traditional weeks’ ownership through RCI Points, shorter-term products and fractional units.

“Eastern Europeans in general love the exchange component that RCI offers, so they can explore the world,” added Steffensen.

Regency has a dedicated social media team working on a range of Facebook sites to strengthen relationships with existing owners and generate interest among prospective guests through unbranded pages which don’t exist purely to promote Regency, but the island of Tenerife in general.

The company operates various social sites to provide its owners with another communication channel, and unbranded travel and promotional sites that gain awareness through year-round organic SEO and pay-per-click initiatives.

Fortina Spa Vacation Resort

in the popular Maltese resort of Sliema receives

an average of 700 arrivals per week. The numbers offer

great scope for a range of hotel marketing programmes,

which have proved hugely successful for Marketing

and Promotion Limited.

Prospective buyers are more savvy than ever before and do not respond well to being stopped in the street by an OPC.

Richard Alden

RCI VENTURES 19

Directive has made timeshare a much more client-friendly product.”

INDUSTRY INNOVATIONS

With approximately one million hotel guests

passing through its 40-plus UK hotels each year, and a

refined attitude to data analysis, Macdonald Hotels & Resorts is in

prime position to deliver the right guests to the door of its new Portuguese

partner property Vale d’Oliveiras.Located in the Carvoeiro area of the Algarve,

Vale d’Oliveiras is a five-star mixed-use resort featuring 104 units – including 80 townhouses offering fractional ownership.

Simon Jackson, CEO of Macdonald Resorts Ltd, said: “We don’t buy external leads for marketing purposes – 100 per cent of our leads will be coming out of the Macdonald

hotel group.”Vale d’Oliveiras has swiftly been incorporated

into the Macdonald Hotels & Resorts marketing touchpoints to benefit from the brand strength of its new partner. That means guests will start seeing the resort promoted in diverse ways including in-room marketing, lobby displays and even pillow drops, as well as through the company’s website and other digital channels.

Jackson added: “Fractionals at Vale d’Oliveiras are high quality, so they’ll also be available to the high-end rental marketplace, which will also be a source of potential purchasers. As you’d expect from a major hotel group we’ve amassed a great deal of data and information about our guests, and their compatibility to the properties that we market to them.

“We also have several golf courses across the UK in some very prestigious locations, and the Algarve is obviously very golf-intensive. We can narrow down in our database people who are keen on golf, or guests that prefer suites, apartments or even hotel rooms, and tailor make their holidays at Vale d’Oliveiras or one of our other resorts to suit their specific holiday requirements.

“We have the skillset and a diverse arm to our business that’s been very successful in managing hotels and resorts for many years now,” said Jackson.

“When we first went into our current resorts it was as the managing partner for Barratt International Leisure. We only enter into ventures that produce a win-win situation for both parties – any deal has to be beneficial for the partner company and any stakeholders that come into the deal.”

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Macdonald Hotels & Resorts’

latest partner property is Vale D’Oliveiras in the

Carvoeiro area of the Algarve. The five-star, mixed-use resort

includes 80 townhouses offering fractional ownership, and the Macdonald brand is playing

a key role in a diverse marketing strategy.

mention that the costs and regulatory burdens to maintain an OPC operation have greatly increased.”

Hotel programmes, holiday exhibitions and a dedicated telemarketing centre form the mainstay of sales efforts for the established company, which markets five-star Maltese resorts and houseboats on the Venetian Riviera.

“Hotel programmes are a big hit for us,” said Alden. “Our conversion rates are higher, the quality of clientele is higher, and the focus is there – they’re not clock-watching and everything is much more relaxed.

“You have to be very careful with hotel programmes. It’s absolutely vital you don’t upset your client base within a resort, and you have to spend a lot of time as the timeshare director coordinating with hotel management.”

There are on average 700 arrivals a week at Fortina Spa Vacation Resort, one of the properties it markets in Malta. “If your people are pushy or rude and mislead people in any way, they’ll tell all the other arrivals in the restaurants or by the pool, and they won’t come to your presentations. And you have to be 100 per cent transparent,” said Alden.

MAP works with promoters at 15 holiday exhibitions in the UK to collect data about prospective owners and conduct holiday draws.

“Unlike the days gone by of £49 fly-buys, inspection visits cost between £200 and £500. You don’t need thousands of people and packed sales decks,” added Alden. “The days of playing the numbers game are gone. Absolute transparency and the new Timeshare

RICHARD ALDENSales and Marketing Director, MAP

VASSILIS THEMELIDISRegional Director, RCI Europe

SIMON JACKSONCEO, Macdonald Resorts Ltd

EIVIND STEFFENSENMarketing Director, Regency Resorts