RDO turns up the heat on Resale and Holiday Club Fraudsters
Brussels 29th March 2010 - As part on an ongoing campaign to help stamp out fraudulent practices targeted at timeshare owners, RDO (Resort Development Organisation), the trade body for timeshare and fractional ownership, is calling for consumers to come forward with their complaints. Of particular interest are complaints from people who have been invited to a presentation either to discuss ways in which to dispose of their timeshare or to join a class action scheme, but are then persuaded to sign up to membership of a holiday club of which they had no former knowledge. A deposit is frequently taken and...
What is Fractional Ownership
Fractional ownership enables people to own an interest in a luxury property (often in an exclusive holiday resort or glamorous city centre location) that they might otherwise be unable to afford. It is equally attractive to those who can afford to purchase property outright, but do not have the time to use or maintain it all year round. It is commonly sold in anything from quarter to one twelfth shares, with periods of the year being allocated on either a rotational basis or a mixture of fixed and floating periods within a season. As well as having all the benefits of...
Why Join the RDO?
November is a month for reflection, not only because it is the month before we get into the hectic round that is the run up to Christmas and the New Year, but because traditionally this is a month when we have few meetings, the membership invoices for 2011 go out and we get a chance to draw breath and reflect on events and developments after the Conference. Next month I am afraid you will have to put up with my reflections on the year and thoughts on 2011 (something to look forward to!) . So why this topic? For the very...
RDO to crack down further on illegal operators 2011, following success of last year’s anti-fraud cam
Consumer protection is top priorityIn 2010, 32 bogus companies operating on the fringes of the timeshare industry were forced to close down following the efforts of the Resort Development Organisation's enforcement team - and those efforts look set to continue full steam ahead this year....
2010, A Year to Forget?
I was at a meeting recently and we were discussing the year from a business perspective and the other person, talking about the performance of his business said "I am going to forget 2010 as a year, business was so poor". After the meeting I set to considering whether this applied to RDO, as we all know that economically across the Northern Hemisphere we have all been struggling out of the banking crisis, shoring up the euro and preparing ourselves for some years of austerity - no wonder that in Asia where things are considerably better, they refer to it...
Supporting Timeshare Owners – The Timeshare Partnership Trust
A new trust fund has been established by The Resort Development Association (RDO) to help timeshare owners protect their resorts from local or national legislation or disputes that may impact negatively on their resort. The new self-funded trust is called The Timeshare Partnership Trust and will provide grants to resorts to help safeguard the timeshare holiday experience for owners. The Timeshare Partnership Trust is run by a grants committee comprising one representative from the RDO Secretariat, one from TATOC (the Timeshare Association) and an RDO chairman. This committee will review applications from owners associations throughout Europe for grants to resolve issues, such...
RDO goes on TV!
As of January this year, RDO is featured in an advert being carried on Satellite and Cable TV, on travel and holiday programmes featured on such life style channels as the Travel and History Channels, National Geographic, and Sky News. The initial spend by RDO is not huge this year and is being classified as a UK Chapter expense as the majority exposure is in the UK, although a number of the channels are carried in resorts around Europe, particularly Spain and Portugal. Why are we doing this and why is the intention to expand this exposure in the coming...
New Year message from the Chairman
On behalf of everybody at the Resort Development Organisation (RDO), I would like to wish you all a happy and prosperous 2011! The difficult times may still be lingering, but there are also many positives to help us through the new year. This is a promising year for the timeshare industry in Europe, as we will finally see new legislation implemented, which should create a level playing field across the EU and benefit everyone, if enforced correctly. Thanks to this, we can now concentrate our efforts on raising awareness and communicating positive messages about timeshare and fractional ownership. RDO will continue to...
Cometh The Hour, Cometh The Directive
My apologies to those of a literary bent and my misuse of the quote "Cometh the hour, cometh the man"- which for those of you remotely interested is attributed to Mark Twain but there is some doubt about whether he said it. The reason it came into my head was as a result of the series of Council meetings and the RDO Board last month. Most of the time in the Legislative Council meeting in January was, not unnaturally, taken up with detailed discussion of the implementation of the 2nd Timeshare Directive in the 27 EU Member States, the stages reached...
Fractionals in Europe – Crisis, what Crisis?
I came away from the annual Fractional Life Summit in London last week both encouraged and depressed. The former, because at this the third I think of these events, we actually had timeshare developers on a panel informing the summit how they had successfully upgraded their timeshare owners into fractionals - not that revolutionary you may feel, but a big step forward for the summit, which had at its previous 2 gatherings studiously avoided any reference to timeshare or the new legislation now in force in the last 7 days, which applies equally to most fractionals as it does to...