Timeshare Stripped Bare Seminar Review

Late September 2009 saw Dial An Exchange host a controversial seminar entitled
'Timeshare Stripped Bare'. The setting was the picturesque Barnsdale Hotel &
Country Club, located in the middle of England’s smallest county and nestled on the
banks of Rutland Water.

The seminar was unique in that both industry professionals and timeshare owners
were invited to attend. Amongst some industry insiders there was nervousness at
involving owners in sensitive discussions surrounding some of the industry's biggest
challenges and most controversial subjects.

As the conference proceedings unfolded, it transpired there were no grounds for

such concerns. The event attracted an intimate but worthwhile gathering, consisting
of some of the major players within the timeshare industry, resort committee
members and individual timeshare owners, who were keen to hear what the experts
predicted for the future of timeshare.

The seminar was skilfully moderated by David Lilley. This event represented his
second gathering of this nature, the first being the January 2007 Catalyst To
Change Seminar, which David organised and moderated during his time as
Strategic Alliance Director for RCI.

Lilley kicked off the seminar with a typically forthright appraisal of the challenges the
timeshare industry in Europe faces. The concerns raised in Lilley's opening address
were emphasised and justified by opinions expressed from some of the business
delegates in attendance.

When Lilley asked the question 'What percentage of timeshare owners in Europe
wish to exit?' the weighted answer from 3 knowledgeable people was a remarkable
50%.

Given the provocative title to the seminar, independent observers could have been
forgiven for thinking the event was being staged to attack and undermine the
timeshare industry. This was definitely not the case.

Lilley made a point of drawing out the many positives experiences that timeshare
extends to its customers, and despite the fact that there were many disgruntled
owners in the audience, when Lilley asked his ritual question about the levels of
satisfaction that owners get from the product, many hands were raised in acceptance
of the undisputed fact – that when timeshare is sold and serviced correctly, it is a
wonderful product!

Following on from the opening David's introduction, Geoff Chapman, a Director of

TATOC, delivered an interesting and precise summary of TATOC's work to support
timeshare owners. Chapman presented a variety of statistics sourced from the
existence of the TATOC helpline. The most pertinent parts of Chapman's
presentation centred on where issues originate from, with bogus re-sale companies
and holiday clubs forming the biggest part of the problem.

Simon Jackson, Managing Director of Macdonald Resorts shared his views on the
subject of product repositioning. Jackson has already developed a reputation as an
executive who would be happy to form part of a united alliance to tackle the
industry's biggest challenges, but in the seeming absence of such initiatives, he is
clearly prepared to pioneer new activities. This was evidenced by the Macdonald 5
Year Holiday Product, which was very well received, commended by all members of
the audience and described as the product of the future.

One of the most memorable presentations of the seminar came from Ramy Filo,
Chairman of DAE Live and CEO of Classic Holidays. Filo revealed that the
Australian timeshare market were somewhat ahead of Europe in many areas.

Australia already has a sales certification platform and a clear appetite to create
products that have appeal to the customer. One of the most poignant messages that
emerged from all the speakers was Filo's statement 'The way I see it, we have
products and customers. If the products are not appealing, we need to change the
products because we cannot keep changing the customers'.

Phil Watson, Managing Director of Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket gave a lively

and mildly abrasive performance to explain his views on the subject of re-sales.
Watson encouraged owners to be less clumsy in handing over money to companies
who make unsolicited cold calls and stated that members wishing to relinquish their
ownership, needed to be realistic about the value of their timeshare.

Watson played shared some examples of his company’s media work and should be
applauded for his personal attempts to change the perception of timeshare by
embracing some of the more expensive advertising vehicles, such as television.

New timeshare legislation is set to have a profound impact on the timeshare industry
in Europe. Alex Radford, a Solicitor from leading law firm Irwin Mitchell, gave a
condensed and layman's term summary of the EU legislation that becomes active in
2010.

In the audience debate that was moderated after Radford's speech, it became clear
that whilst there are some commendable elements to the new legislation, other parts
of it could only be described as a suppressant to reasonable business. The total ban
on any form of deposit for example, is a restriction that is not placed on many other
industries around Europe.

The subject of increasing maintenance fees and the growing trend towards court
action for defaulting owners was expected to create fierce debate. The reality,
however, was there was quite a degree of empathy and understanding towards
those developers who now see it as necessary to take defaulters to court.

Martin Beesley is one of the few respected timeshare resort developers in Europe.
He boldly took to the floor to explain why his two resorts (Fairways Club in Tenerife
and Pueblo Evita on the Costa del Sol) had this year started to take court action
against defaulters.

Beesley explained that those owners who were choosing to default were simply
placing an increased liability on the remaining members of the club, and this served
only to compound the challenge of suppressing maintenance fee increases. Beesley
also pointed out that the bogus holiday pack companies seemed to regard the
owners at resorts where court action was not being taken as easy prey for their
fraudulent products.

In summarising the maintenance fee session, Lilley drew out a diagram to explain
the consequences of taking court action versus those of doing nothing. Whilst Lilley
made the point that he personally had very mixed views on this subject, the audience
offered little resistance to the suggestion that court action, when thoroughly
considered from a holistic viewpoint, was not necessarily as negative as some
owners would suggest.

One of the more eagerly anticipated speeches was delivered by Matthew Moody,
Former head of Revenue Management at RCI Europe. Moody covered the subject of
trading power and had the business delegates transfixed at the complexity of the
subject.

Paul Mattimoe of Perspective International could justifiably claim that his company
has done more to assist the timeshare industry than any other player in Europe. He
took the delegates through a chronological summary of his company’s evolution, his
survey on timeshare owners and general attitudes towards timeshare, as well as
sharing the objective of their two magazines.

Mattimoe has broken many perception barriers in seeing his timeshare magazine,
Owners Perspective, placed into the likes of British Airways First Class Lounges and
respected supermarkets such as Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s. The revelations that
these initiatives were not receiving much in the way of support from European
developers drew gasps of surprise from some of the owners in the audience.

Chief Executive of TATOC Harry Taylor concluded his short interview with David
Lilley to publicly recognise the work that David had done to support TATOC with the
award of six bottles of fine wine. Whilst veteran Sutton Hall resort Chairman Neville
Greenwood, with 18 years on his resort’s committee behind him, shared some
insight into the trends that he has observed over the years, particularly in relation to
repossessed weeks and the methods his resort use to get them back into ownership.

One the concluded session of the seminar was on the subject of sales certification.

The panel of the speakers and other business delegates all agreed that a sales
certification platform would benefit European timeshare but this really needed to be:
(a) backed by the authorities and (b) enforced for it to have any major impact and
sustained value.

Dial An Exchange and the event sponsors should be applauded for brining this event
together. Under the spotlight of scrutiny and some heavy criticism for daring to cover
such sensitive subjects, the worlds’ third largest exchange provider emerged with
strong credibility and deserve some recognition for being prepared to invest in the
future of the industry by tackling such thorny subjects. The comments made on
timeshare owner forums has already justified and confirmed the value in such
events.
With such a positive response and some useful networking sessions for the business
delegates, you can bet the next event will have a fair few more attendees.

David Lilley chooses to leave Dial An Exchange

Whilst no announcement was made at the event, it transpires that the Timeshare
Stripped Bare event was Lilley’s last public performance as Managing Director of
Dial An Exchange Europe.

Whilst working for DAE, Lilley has operated his own marketing company (Marketing
Innovations) since 2007. When asked about his reasons for leaving DAE he
commented.

“Philip Green (the owner of DAE) and I decided we did not want to make an
announcement about my departure at the seminar because we did not want to take
the focus away from the objectives of the seminar.

I’ve had a fabulous two years at DAE. I think they are a terrific, customer focused
company and Philip and I part as friends. I will still be doing some work for DAE in
2010 at two members Roadshow, as well as organising and moderating another
business seminar. I will also continue to be editor of their Holiday Magazine.

My decision to leave DAE was purely that I wanted to explore other business
opportunities and dedicate more time to some of my personal business projects.
These projects include a specific rental service for owners at independent resorts
called Rent Your Week and a rescue package called Resort Rescue for resorts that
find themselves in financial difficulties”