DestinationClubs

The Design Of A Great Vacation: Quintess and the Destination Club Experience

As with many great ideas, the destination club idea was not born in a vacuum. Its distant ideological cousin, the timeshare, originated in the '70's in Europe. It was a simple idea, buying space for time, but because of some developers' sales techniques, the timeshare developed a less than stellar reputation. However, the idea itself remained viable, and it evolved – from owning a 1/30th share in a small apartment, to owning shares in much more substantive residences, and in the clubs themselves,. The membership deed or the fractional share all came with significant amenities: private chefs, limo drivers, dedicated destination hosts, existing only to make dinner arrangements, acquiring the best concert tickets, creating worry-free vacations on every known dimension.

The destination club idea took hold in the early 2000s. In the beginning, were the nonequity clubs, then came the equity based ones. With the former, the member did not own anything, paid a one-time membership deposit, annual dues, and vacationed in elite destinations in $2-6M homes. With the equity-based clubs, the members owned the clubs, bought the homes and had much to say in the club management.

But there was a dark side to this idea – and it was its explosive and unexpected growth. In 2003, the sales volume was a modest $513.M. In 2006, it ballooned to $2.5B.

All went well until the industry hit a major bump in July of 2006, with Tanner & Haley, the first Destination Club, to bankrupt, followed by many others. Out of the 31 functioning destination clubs extant in 2006, there are now, in 2010, five. But these five are strong,fiscally transparent, and consumer-centric, taking a lessons-learned approach from the failed clubs. The equity-based clubs, where the members own the residences, are Equity Estates, and Abercrombie & Kent Residence Clubs. The non-equity clubs, are Exclusive Resorts, oldest and largest, Ultimate Escapes, the second largest with has multi-leveled membership plans, and, Quintess arguably, one of the smaller and most boutique-like, with many architecturally significant homes, all priced at 4M and up.

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Tags: destination clubs, DestinationClubs, Exclusive resorts, Quintess, Ultimate escapes

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Abercrombie & Kent Residence Club members Choose their Favorite Home

by Susan Kime (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, Real Estate Developments, By Design

The shared ownership industry has made huge strides since timeshares first hit the scene in the 1970s. Besides the market's continued growth even during last year, called fittingly the annus horribilis by many, there has been a noticeable shift in quality and design aesthetics of purchased residences.. Gone are the basic ski chalets with cuckoo clocks, and plastic fern-festooned condos of the early years, and in their place are exceptional high-end residences where every element, both inside and out, is designed with painstaking detail.

One reason for this re-emergence of design relevance is a growing awareness that design is found everywhere -- not only in objects, but also in a vacation experience. If an object is badly designed, no matter how much it costs, it will corrode or fail in some way. If a person has a badly designed vacation experience, the memory created will corrode, and be forgotten. Exceptional design, both with objects purchased and in the vacations experienced, fuses the practical with the aesthetic, the visceral with the cognitive, and has the ability to create a positive memorable experience, anyone's definition of a luxury legacy.

This awareness is quite apparent in the high end hospitality industry, where branded and boutique hotels, private residence and destination clubs, villa residence enclaves, and elite tour operators all strive to make the member, the owner, the guest, and the visitor simply -- happy with the vacation design experience both inside and outside the residence.

In September of 2008, Abercrombie & Kent Residence Club was launched, a new equity based, debt- free residence club with an already established brand. Abercrombie & Kent has been a luxury tour operator since 1962 and is well established worldwide as one of the few great brands in adventure travel. And, the residence club expanded the brand, offering unique travel and lodging experiences in a multiplicity of unusual and traditional destinations. Abercrombie & Kent Residence Club is an equity- based club, where members are the owners, and the club runs in a debt free mode.

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Tags: Abercrombie Kent Residence Club, AbercrombieAndKent, Destination Clubs, DestinationClubs, equity-based, Hawaii, Mauna Lani resort, MaunaLaniResort, Residence Clubs, vacation designs, VacationDesigns

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LV Resorts Orders Natalia Cars

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates, Luxury Travel & Hotels, Luxury Cars & Autos

How do you get people to notice your destination club in an increasingly packed market? How about offering them the chance to drive a luxury car that few people have even heard of. LV Resort Villas has ordered 10 Natalia SLS 2 Sport Luxury Sedans from DiMora Motorcar for their luxury resort estates around the world. The Natalia is a $2 million four-door sedan with the 1200-horsepower DiMora Volcano V16 engine. It's a bold move but looking at the website for DiMora I wonder if when/if these cars will actually arrive at the LV homes.

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Tags: destination clubs, DestinationClubs, dimora, lv resorts, natalia

Tanner & Halley Villa Hotels, Destination Clubs for the Commitment-Phobe

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels

Tanner & Haley Villa Hotels aren't so much hotels as they are private residences which include the services of a personal concierge in order to provide hotel-like service in a private home. The company already runs a successful destination club and the new service allows people to have a similar experience but without the heavy investment or commitment. A quick comparison between the Tanner & Halley Villas wesbsite and the main Tanner & Halley site reveals that many of these are same residences. Prices start around $1,000 per night for the residences which are located in places from Scottsdale, Arizona to Kenya.

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Tags: destination clubs, DestinationClubs, hotels, travel, vacation