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Vacation ownership set to grow 
Vacation ownership set to grow
Thailand is potential for vacation
ownership to grow.
Thailand is high on Absolute Group's agenda
for vacation home ownership.
It is selling the concept to wealthy
Thais through its subsidiary, Absolute Vacation Club, and reckons Thai
customers could be in the top rank in three years.
The group,
announced, last week, it has invested in six properties due to open by
2011. In addition it will seek joint ventures with hotel partners to
draw additional real estate into its vacation ownership programme.
This
year, Thai Absolute Vacation Club offers 22 resorts, but it has joint
ventures with 2,000 resorts, worldwide.
It will open Absolute
Bangla Suites and Absolute Nakalay Beach Resort both in Phuket, this
year. Then in 2010, Absolute Sansabai Resort and Spa in Phuket, Yoo
Samui and Platinum Jomtien will open followed in 2011, with Yoophuket.
Its
initial investment is in Pattaya, Samui and Phuket, but the group will
also expand to Chiang Mai, Kanchanaburi, Hua Hin, Khao Yai and Saraburi.
Bangkok
hotels are no strangers to time-share. They were a popular target in
the late 1990s for vacation club operators, who convinced owners to put
whole floors of their underperforming real estate under the club’s
management during a slump in business to the capital.
Absolute
Group is the latest to join the trend with its Thai Absolute Vacation
Club that opened in April. Since its debut it claims to have sold 250
memberships to Thais and expects to achieve 2,000 by the end of the
year, representing Bt500 million worth.
Thai customers pay into
the club to own time at a variety of resorts worldwide.
By 2011,
it hopes to raise Thai membership to represent 22% of its membership,
followed by Europeans (21%), Russian (19%), Australian (17%), Chinese
(16%), American (4%) and Middle East (1%).
Absolute group
chairman, Bryan Lunt, believes Thais are ready to pay huge sums to be
part of time-share: “Thais buy condominium or houses in resort
destinations. Each time they go for holiday, they have to spend time and
energy cleaning them. But buying into a ownership programme, means they
always have a clean room, well maintained and they can change their
holiday locations to other resorts in the network .â
Mr Lunt ha,
apparently, overlooked the fact that wealthy Thais have servants who
clean and maintain their properties.
Vacation ownership packages
vary according to the room type, length of annual stay, length of
contract starting from Bt250,000 Each year, customers have to pay an
annual maintenance fee. Membership can always be sold or transferred.
Target
groups are age between 30 to 62 years old, from senior management up,
with families.Source: http://www.ttrweekly.com/site/index.php?id=138&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=1...
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