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...
UK Tourism Strategy
The UK government has launched a tourism strategy to help generate 4 million additional overseas visitors over the next 4 years, bringing in £2 billion worth of extra spend to the UK and creating 50,000 new jobs across the country. It has joined forces with the private sector to create a marketing fund of more than £100 million to promote tourism abroad and is exploring ways in which to overcome issues that currently challenge the industry such as red tape on business, visa applications, airport queuing times, planning and infrastructure. The government's goals are to: Fund a marketing...
The world in turmoil
These last few weeks we have seen floods and fires in Australia, earthquake in New Zealand, the old regimes in Tunisia and Egypt falling to popular uprisings, problems in other North African States, the Gulf States and Saudia Arabia and of course what looks set to be a very nasty Civil War in Libya. On top of this we have just had the news of the severe earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It was pointed out to me recently by Dimitris Manikis of RCI, that European timeshare owners were the fortunate ones, compared to package holiday-makers or second home owners in...
RDO Enforcement in Action
On 5th January 2011, the Advertising Standards Authority in London issued what they call an "Assessment" but which we lawyers would call a" judgment", in that its publication has consequences with which the parties must comply. Let us wind back 7 months...
Arrests of Suspected Fraudsters in Tenerife
On 1st December 1st 2010, the Spanish National Police arrested 25 people who were behind 10 fraudulent timeshare resale companies operating from Tenerife. Most of the arrested people are Germans and their victims, timeshare owners, share the same nationality. It is reported that when contacting timeshare owners, the gang claimed to work in conjunction with notaries and even adopted the names of existing public notaries – but with subtle changes - using this as a hook to persuade their victims to part with money. The Spanish National Police conducted searches at six different locations, finding over 100,000 personal details of European timeshare...
Tuscan residence club joins Interval International
Interval International has added Villa Bossi Pucci Residence Club, a resort located in the heart of the Chianti region of Tuscany, Italy, to its global vacation exchange network. The 21 fractional residences at Villa Bossi Pucci are housed in buildings that once comprised a farming village, set amidst olive orchards and vineyards in the Tuscan hills. Each residence has generous interior space and sweeping views of the Montespertoli valley and the Castello di Poppiano or of the olive and fruit gardens. Interval members and their guests will be able to take advantage of the full-time concierge services to book local restaurants, massages,...