Magazine

The Timeshare Industry - A Look at Technology

© 2005 Hospitality Upgrade. No reproduction without written permission.

When I stopped to think about it there are actually many differences in the technologies and business focus. The high level business drivers are the same—maximize the brand and drive sales. However, sales takes on a whole new meaning.

In general, traditional hotel technologies such as property management systems, point of sales, HSIA, in-room entertainment, guest service systems as well as back of the house systems are just a fraction of the technologies that are deployed. The hotel operations are very similar to that of any destination resort. Although, the key statistics and business drivers, such as average daily rate, occupancy and RevPAR are just a small part of the operational indicators used to manage the timeshare business.

At the property level there is almost three distinct business operations (real estate sales, club members and traditional hotel operations) all which have to coexist in a harmonious fashion. Of course, each has its own unique business goals. Therefore, the hotel operations side of the business is similar. That however, is where the differences begin.

For the core technology used to run the rest of the business, sales and club services is really where the uniqueness of the systems unfold. There are very few software vendors that have a complete system to handle this part of the operation. Most major timeshare companies have proprietary systems that are used to automate this part of the business. In addition, the way in which the product is sold plays a key roll in the required functionality of the systems.

Hilton doesn’t really sell timeshare by the week or for a fixed unit, but rather they sell points which equate to a type of unit and length of stay. As an example with HGVC you can buy 7,000 points for a seven-day stay in a two bedroom apartment. That would also translate to about two weeks in a one bedroom unit. Of course geographic locations such as the value in Orlando vs. a Hawaii location all affect the translation ratio. These points can be exchanged for Hilton Honors points to be used at one of the Hilton properties or used in the timeshare exchange system to go to thousands of resorts around the world. As you can see the systems play an integral roll in facilitating these transactions.

Then there’s the business process. First, we prospect potential customers through a series of telemarketing efforts using terabytes of data and sophisticated systems. Telemarketing systems are integrated with these large databases and traditional PBXs are used to process millions of outbound calls. The systems track the progress of these calls and the ultimate arrival of this potential owner at a property. We then use sales management systems to assign the guest with the sales agent and managed the entire on-site property tour process.

When a guest makes a purchase, data is fed to the automated contract management system which takes over preparing the necessary legal documents, handling inventory management, capturing all the necessary owner information (far more than a traditional transient guest) and calculating the complex sales commission to the appropriate sales staff. Even though Hilton uses a points system, the owner is buying a piece of real estate with a traditional deed, therefore we must process all of the typical documents required for a real estate sale. Moreover, the guest has an option to finance this purchase, therefore requiring that we have a complete loan servicing and collections systems process the monthly loan payments and interest calculations. There is a full real estate sales and loan servicing “business” operating within the overall business.

Then there is the functionality and systems to manage the owners and home owners associations, including annual maintenance fee billings, collections and related items. Highly customized software deals with the Hilton Vacation Club, points management, exchanges and reservations.

Reservations and inventory management is highly complex. Owners get first use of the inventory to fulfill their travel plans the remaining inventory is then yielded as it is allocated to the sales and the rental operation. On top of all that you have traditional rate and inventory management as rental inventory is allocated to the various distribution channels. Finally, we give our owners and guests increasing ability to access their accounts via our Web sites.

Brian Garavuso is the chief information officer of Hilton Grand Vacations Company. He can be reached at bgaravuso@hgvc.com.