Timeshare Wars

by Marilyn W. Thompson

Hollywood couldn’t create a more perfect movie setting than Sedona, Ariz., with its craggy red rocks and all those junipers. So while vacationing with my film-obsessed son, I thought it only natural to stroll into the free-admission Sedona Motion Picture Museum.

Housed in a storefront on the city’s main shopping strip, the museum seemed a bit “lame,” as my son bluntly put it. Its collection consisted of framed photos of bygone westerns, with stars such as Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne, filmed against the area’s stunning scenery. Within 15 minutes, we had seen everything and were ready to head to the nearby Cowboy Club to sample cactus fries.

But a museum attendant stopped us and soon revealed the true purpose of this pseudo-attraction. The museum was partly a marketing device to entice tourists to timeshare pitches at a 14-year-old resort development affiliated with RCI, one of America’s largest vacation ownership exchange companies. In the timeshare trade, the attendant is known as a “tour generation representative,” earning commissions for making “off-premises contacts” with potential buyers. Like slow-witted sheep, my son and I had walked clear-eyed into a booby trap.

What evolved over the next few days was a revealing look at the hard-core salesmanship of timeshare developers and, by extension, of the companies they contract to provide exchange services for buyers — RCI and its principal timeshare rival, the publicly traded leisure company Interval International. Anyone who has ever owned a timeshare has experienced the relentless push during precious relaxation time to persuade you to invest in more weeks, or more “points,” at more resorts in more locations. It’s an oft-repeated ritual whenever you check in for a timeshare swap: groggy travelers presented with “invitations” for timeshare previews within minutes of getting the keys to their rooms.

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