I was pleased to read this article on the Daily Mail's web site the other day:
Holiday company Butlins is to introduce a timeshare-style scheme called BlueSkies, it was announced today. The scheme will enable holidaymakers to have an annual break at Butlins for the next 30 years. The company is developing luxury timeshare apartments at its holiday centre at Minehead in Somerset, with building work set for completion in March next year.
For £6,000, owners will be able to purchase 30 years of holidays based, for example, on taking a family away for around a week in May annually.
For their money, owners will get what Butlins describes as "a spacious, modern holiday apartment set slightly apart from the main Butlins resort (at Minehead), full of contemporary design features, positioned right on the edge of the sea and close to the stunning scenery of Exmoor".
Mike Crowther from Butlins, who is leading the BlueSkies development, said: "BlueSkies is holiday heaven for the growing number of people who enjoy the fun and convenience of a UK family break."Second homes and holiday apartments are an unattainable dream for many people as they can be expensive to buy, maintain and manage."We're aiming to create a development that is luxurious, flexible, great value and guarantees a first rate family holiday."
I will freely admit to being for Timeshare in all it's varying guises. I don't always agree with the way it gets marketed by some unscrupulous companies but that's an argument we'll leave for another day, the fact that houshold names like Butlins are now joining the likes of Disney, Marriott's, Hilton and Airtours to name just a few can only add to raising the credibility and professionalism of what, despite all the bad press it still receives, remains to be one of the fastest growing leisure industries in the world.
I believe Timeshare will eventually be accepted in Europe in the same way as it is in the States.I would be interested in hearing your opinions on the subject.
Please leave a comment, or drop me an e-mail with your views.
Butlins Joins Luxury Timeshare Developers
The Birth Of Timeshare - A Marketing Genius
Which ever way you look at it Timeshare was and still is one of the marketing geniuses of our time.
Way back in the early sixties a hotelier in the French Alps started marketing his hotel with the slogan “Why rent a room when you can own the hotel. It’s cheaper” and that was it the birth of a concept that rocked the holiday industry.
The concept was brilliant. Each buyer would own a share in the hotel (Shares were divided into weeks of accommodation throughout the year) each owner would contribute a yearly amount towards the maintenance of the hotel and hey presto there you had it, deeded fixed timeshare. The hotel was sold and the Hotelier had a guaranteed clientele with all his overheads and up keep paid in advance. The only downside was finding enough people who wanted to holiday in the same place every year.
A Swiss company called Hapimag took the concept a step further selling shares on a right to use basis as apposed to deeded ownership, but added the benefit of being able to use your week or weeks in their other resorts in Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Offering a more flexible product and giving the Hapimag members a choice of destinations.
Hapimag is still a successful company today, and has remained independent from the larger exchange companies.
Timeshare reached the United States around 1969 in a place called Kauai Kailani where it was sold on a 40-year leasehold basis and it is said the first points system was introduced here offering the members even greater flexibility.
The owners were still demanding more flexibility and more choice of destinations. In 1974 RCI (Resort Condominiums International) was formed and provide the missing link that the members were looking for. They could now bank their weeks with RCI and exchange them between different resorts dotted around the globe.
It was in the eighties that the timeshare concept really spread across Europe making a significant impression in Spain and Portugal and by the 1990’s there were some 2,357 timeshare developments worldwide with well over four million timeshare owners enjoying this still fairly new kind of holiday concept.
By now a firmly established, multi-billion dollar timeshare industry was attracting some of the bigger names in the leisure industry such as: Hilton, Sheraton, Disney World Resorts, Four Seasons, Hyatt and Radisson bringing with them the much needed credibility that timeshare was lacking in Europe.
Today, timeshares boasts over 5,400 resorts in more than 100 countries worldwide and is better organised and regulated with trade bodies such as ARDA (American Resort Development Association) and the OTE (Organisation for Timeshare in Europe) helping to protect the rights of potential purchasers and policing the use of high-pressure sales tactics.
So there you have it. A marketing genius that not only has stood the test of time but still remains one of the fastest growing sectors in the leisure and hospitality industry and as Butlins now joins in with their first timeshare development “Blueskies” based in Minehead, England who knows what or where the next development will be?
