Randall Upchurch

This book provides a complete overview of timeshare development and operation models. The authors take a comprehensive look at the present and future of this growing segment of the hospitality industry, including specialized approaches to marketing, human resources, service quality, finance, legal considerations and professional ethics.

Timeshare, or vacation ownership, is a relatively recent leisure phenomenon. It emerged in the late 1950s as a way to secure extra capital resources to fund property expansion. Shareholders had the right to use these properties on a regular basis. Although arrangements have grown in complexity and variation, the model allows for customers to buy rights to use a property for a fixed time period each year. Timeshare arrangements have experienced rapid international growth particularly in the last fifteen to twenty years and are now an important vacation arrangement. Most of the world's major hotel and resort developers now operate timeshare properties. Firms like Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Disney and Ramada have brought a new formality and legitimacy to timeshare development and operation.