Higher Visitor Numbers are a Very Good Indicator for the Timeshare Industry February 8, 2011
Posted by John Stephens in : General, News & Events, Travel , add a commentGetting a grasp on the condition of the timeshare industry is tough, since many times people just look at the sales figures and try to come to their own conclusions about the health of the industry.
On the surface, the fact that new sales have plunged to 2003 levels could lead people to think that demand for the product has dropped off and that potential owners are not happy with timeshare. The facts say otherwise, as 84 percent of owners are satisfied with the product and occupancy rates hover at the 80 percent mark.
People are using their timeshares and are happy with the product.
The low sales volume has more to do with the financial sector, as most lenders stopped giving money to developers (and just about everyone else) following the 2008 economic meltdown. Without the funding to make consumer loans, developers couldn’t finance timeshare purchases, which led to cutbacks in their sales and marketing departments and, well, you get the idea.
When looking for indicators about the health of the industry, keep in mind that the timeshare sector is really just a sub-group of the travel industry, so looking at how travel and tourism are shaping up will give us a better idea of the potential for growth. For example, if you are an Orlando timeshare owner, chances are that you were on vacation first before buying your first timeshare. That would have made you a tourism statistic long before you became a timeshare statistic.
Looking at tourism stats for Orlando (since Orlando is the capital of the timeshare industry), final air-traffic figures released last week by the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority showed passenger traffic rose by 3 million people in December, up 5.7 percent compared with the same month in 2009, according to the Orlando Sentinel. That helped boost airport traffic by 3.5 percent for the entire year.
The Sentinel also reported that hotel-tax collections for Orange County (which is where most of the Orlando hotel industry is located) rose 15.4 percent during the month of December compared with December, 2009. The county collected $14.3 million for December, $1.9 million more than the same month a year ago. The increase is the 11th consecutive month of year-over-year gains for the “tourist development tax,” which is charged on short-term rentals, mostly hotels and motels.
Even hotel occupancy was up, as Smith Travel Research data showed that Orlando hotels recorded an average occupancy of 63.2 percent for the year, up 6.3 percent from the 59.5 percent occupancy recorded in 2009.
The numbers show that more people are flying into Central Florida, staying in resorts and spending more money than they did in 2009. Once this takes hold for a longer period of time, and the financial markets continues to thaw, then it’s only a matter of time before the timeshare industry begins to grow again at a substantial pace.
Our hope is that those people traveling to Orlando and other major timeshare destinations such as Las Vegas and Myrtle Beach check out the timeshare resale market before paying too much for a “new” timeshare through a resort.
Great deals can be found for Orlando timeshare here at BuyaTimeshare.com, so for more information about how to buy timeshare on the secondary market, click here.