Top Ten Predictions For Developers Offering Fractional Vacation Ownership
September 20, 2011
The Fractional Summit took place between August 30 and August 31, 2011 at the Intercontinental at Miami, Florida. It was sponsored by Fractionallife.com. George Sell, an editor at FractionalLife.com provided his summary of the direction of the Fractional Ownership industry, based upon the comments of a knowledgeable and experienced panel.The panel consisted of Piers Brown - founder of Fractional Life; Howard Nusbaum, President of American Resort Development Association (ARDA); Gregg Anderson, global vice president of The Registry Collection; Chris Payne, Partner at Ballard Spahr; and Scott Ritter, vice president of the residential division at Dahlgren & Duck Associates.
Here is George's summary of the panel's forecasts for the top 10 fractional industry trends for the next few years:
- More hybrid models of ownership in the form of a “vacation currency” to keep up with changing times
- Nightly valuations and bookings, rather than weekly bookings, resulting in increased flexibility for the buyer
- Increased emphasis on quality rather than cost – fractional buyers want to do things better rather than cheaper
- More targeted marketing to affinity groups rather than a generic financially qualified buyer
- Increased emphasis on health and wellness at resorts – yoga, pilates, spas etc
- Smaller fraction sizes
- Short-term and finite ownership period products with a guaranteed exit strategy
- More on-resort technology to keep up with the modern consumer
- Increase in user-friendly environmental technology to appeal to green buyers
- Developers will increasingly listen to what consumers want rather than trying to predict what they want
Pasted from Fractionaltrade.com - Press Release - Top 10 Trends
The trends the panel high lighted are interesting to us because it appears these experts anticipate price of fractional ownership entry will become lower; stays will become more flexible, from weekly to smaller periods of x number of nights; affinity groups will become targets for advertising; fraction sizes will become smaller, which will compete with offerings of timeshare interests; technology will increase in importantance; the resorts will become more "green" in their operations and developers will listen to what consumers want.
These trends will influence many developers, possibly even Grupo Vidanta. Pricing, features, periods of use and marketing could become some of the many new, important adjustments developers may make to attract the customers they need to keep their facilities operating.