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Advanced Resort Management
by Dennis DiTinno
Our Industry has experienced more changes in the past three decades than practically any other service-related industry, from the use and design of our product to the amenity requirements to meet the needs of the first clients we sold to 20 years ago (when our buyers' average age was in the 40's) to their aging requirements and new purchasers of today. Our owners who were once the pioneers of purchases are entering their own age of maturity and vacation lifestyles. The baby boomers, now of age, and with different vacationing ideas, have made an impact beyond the expectations of most of us, and have in many ways reshaped our futures due solely to their sheer numbers. The next generations are called everything from the "X generation" to the "tech-know generation" with their own unique vacation needs and desires. Each are as different as we once were from our parents.
For this article I had the opportunity to ask several successful resort management companies: to what do they attribute their past successes, and how they're preparing to maintain the same success for the future. Many resounding responses were immediate; with quality service, personal attention and client satisfaction, as always. True, some of the concerns we face in professional management today will always be the same, but as visionaries have and continue to question, "How will we maintain these continuous levels of professionalism to our now worldly clients, from so many different walks of life, who have grown to expect from us so many unique services?"
With the achievements of Liberté and although I feel like the preacher preaching to my peers, I am reminded of several, sometimes nauseatingly simple quotes from other successful people. Quotes that have rung in our ears since the beginning of our business; "If you surround yourself with good, competent, loyal people you will not lose any challenge that knocks on your door", "If you take on a task, do it like your name will be plastered all over it for the world to see". With that in mind I have investigated many other professions not unlike resort management, and found a basic common denominator among those claiming success: Choose what you like to do, break it down to its simplest form and do what you choose the very best you can. Today, finding a doctor that would give you a check-up and an x-ray is nearly impossible. Hairstylists, barbers, and beauticians all have their specialties, and I could go on with almost every profession in the world. Timeshare and resort management is truly a unique and highly specialized field, as it encompasses the needs of the owners, renters and exchangers as well as the operations of a successful and profitable service-driven management company.
If the resort management industry plans not to regress into the unfortunate reputation timeshare once had in sales and development, we must be prepared to move rapidly into the future and recognize the future is already here, today.
Included in the commitment to service our individual clients is the requirement to maintain a positive relationship and assist in the entire life of the vacation unit owner's experience. What gives management companies and the resorts life is the whole package, from the first step of the purchase of their unit to the final transfer or sale. In what is still referred to in many areas as a "cottage industry," management company owners have realized that the best management organizations have specialized in their fields to provide individual services, not only management services, but also by providing an on-site or organized resale service. We at The Liberté Management Group formed such a division over 10 years ago, specifically to service our owners in the resale market. The importance here is what would benefit both the owner's sale (getting the highest price possible) and the overall resort, by monitoring and controlling the taxes levied by each county for our current owners. This is achieved through working educationally with property tax assessor offices in properly establishing the actual sales amount after all costs and profits. A resort's taxes can have a serious adverse effect on the resort's budget by the way each sale is developed and handled once the resort has been turned over to the owners association.
As we all realize, proper budgeting is as important as collecting, which is where a major public relations and resort servicing practice comes into play. As management we can deal with our owners at least five times on a non-positive level when attempting to collect delinquent maintenance fees, from first billing to third notice and late fees to notice of foreclosure. I did say five times and we know the fifth is when they appear at our front desk the day of check in. At Liberté we chose our second avenue for "outsourcing" and contracted with an aggressive yet personable collections organization in Florida. Here, the association and management company both profit and address an owner's inability to pay increasing maintenance fees or late charges at arms length. The manager is relieved of the sometimes embarrassing, burdensome, unpopular task of the owner attempting to negotiate his maintenance fee upon arrival in a crowded reception and sales office. Unpaid fees hit the resort in many different areas. First as uncollected or loss of budgeted income where the requirement of the expense, whether collected or not, must be spent to maintain the resort, as well as the cost of foreclosing to regain a clear title to resell the unit. In our experience, collection agencies vs. straight attorney foreclosures are found to be more personable, cost effective and serve as a profit center for the resorts and management.
In professionally managing timeshare resorts we have found proper training, staffing and continuous supervision of daily operations, from the front desk receptionist and rentals to maintenance of the grounds, building and interior of the resort, and an informational re-sale program are unique to successful management. In order to provide an accurate accounting package with timely monthly financial statements and communications to our boards, an in-house accounting department is a strength that is included in the realm of a professional resort management firm and keeps us in the forefront of management companies in Florida. We have found these areas to be the strengths associated with professional management that has provided our firm with a successful past and a bright growing future within the resort management industry.
Resort management is the professional ability to organize and supervise all services necessary for the professional on-site operations and services to the resort. This encompasses the ability to recognize the necessity to compile the extensive resources necessary to produce a profitable resort while balancing an equally profitable management organization and educating all involved with the total combined goals.