TCA was contacted recently by a journalist, Bejay Browne, from the Cyprus Mail a newspaper founded in 1945. The journalist asked us for any information we may have regarding the impending closure of the Paradise Kings Club. We shared what little information we had and subsequently, the Cyprus Mail published their article.
For a long time TCA has been stating that timeshare in Europe is certainly on the wane. Bejay entitled his article “Has timeshare in Cyprus had its day?” which would echo our sentiments. The article doesn’t really throw any further light on the situation as contact with the management company was met with “We are not Paradise Resorts Cyprus Ltd and will not enter into communication with you.”
As is quite common, the web posting of the article allowed for reader comments and for sure comments are being made:
Both Dan and CyprusOilMan obviously don’t seem to understand timeshare; however, Philippos seems to have got to grips with the product. A further comment seems to echo many articles published by TCA:
Maybe saying childish is a bit farfetched but silly and old-fashioned rings a bell. The mention by Antonis is quite apt as we recently published an article on the subject of timeshare versus AirBnb
TCA comment
It’s bad news that when a timeshare resort goes out of business, it’s a sad day for owners who will have lost all rights to further holidays and of course all monies paid. The likes of Paradise Kings have been suffering for a long period due to the lack of sales of new timeshare contracts. This cash injection is all important to sustain the business. The communication sent to owners announcing the closure made it all too clear that the business could not survive on the collection of maintenance fees alone.
In times of economic crisis, even the payment of maintenance fees can be a struggle. Being able to find or borrow £20,000 to fund future holidays via timeshare is simply out of the question. If this pattern continues it becomes easy to see why timeshare resorts such as Paradise Kings may suffer the same fate. Finance alone is not the whole problem; the holiday market has so many alternatives that offer a far more modern approach to getting away, and collectively this adds to compound the financial problems experienced by smaller timeshare resorts.
Forty years ago timeshare was at the top of the tree for discerning holidaymakers. The same forty years ago we had compact cassettes and eight tracks. In October 1982 Billy Joel became the first artist to have his album 52nd Street released on CD. DVDs were released in 1996 and back then we even used real film in our cameras. The question is where are these products now? Time and innovation have moved on causing their near on demise, and so has the holiday industry, except for timeshare.
For more information regarding this article or assistance in any other timeshare related issues please contact the TCA on 01908 881058 or email: info@TimeshareConsumerAssociation.org.uk