Back in February 2023 we published part one of this article in which we featured a satisfaction survey carried out by the American Resort Development Association (ARDA). The survey was carried out amongst 1,600 timeshare owners, at the time we pointed out that with an estimated over 10m households owning timeshare in the USA, how can a random 1,600 be really representative?
ARDA are at it again this time with the Launch of the Vacation Ownership Sentiment Index. The index has been created in an effort to better track and understand the behaviour of leisure travellers in the United States,
The index will provide ongoing data and insights into travel preferences and attitudes of timeshare owners versus the average leisure traveller and supposedly will serve as a helpful tool for measuring the health of the leisure travel space, whatever that means. Various measures have been implemented including:
- Planned travel and expenditure levels
- Willingness to travel and make reservations
- Widening or narrowing of booking windows
- Recent and anticipated guest experience service delivery and satisfaction
- General sentiment and perceptions of key category engagement drivers
- Relative variances in travel engagement levels and behaviours between timeshare owners and the broader travel market
All interesting stuff….not. These categories fail to explore owner sentiment regards the problematic features of timeshare that most owners face. Anyone can produce a survey that blows smoke, but if the bad as well as the good are not featured then any survey is pointless.
Across all industries, customer complaints are an incredible source of solid information as to how a company, its service and products can be improved. A survey that will always come to the conclusion that whatever is on offer is the best thing since sliced bread is not worth the paper it’s written on. Being frightened of asking questions that may draw a negative result is not reality, such questions should form an integral part of product improvement and overall customer satisfaction. Failure to ask potentially painful questions will never reveal problems and true customer sentiment, thus providing a good source of issues to improve both service and the product.
The numbers
As stated above, TCA could hardly accept that 1,600 participants would really bring accurate results; well with the new “index” it gets worse. According to ARDA, a nationally representative sample of 500 U.S. based timeshare owners and 500 leisure travellers form the basis of the data to create the index. With ARDA proudly stating that there are over 10,000,000 timeshare owning families in the States, how can just 500 be representative?
According to the 2020 U.S. Census Bureau figures, more than three-quarters of the overall population (77.9%) or 258.3 million were adults, 18 years or older. Adults over 18 are prime candidates to take holidays, now we’re not saying that all 258.3m take holidays, but the figure that do will be a darn sight more than the 500 ARDA use to arrive at meaningful data.
TCA comment
We all love a good survey and like to see and engage in the results but only if such surveys are taken from a large cross section of participants. By way of example, in the UK there is an organisation that provides radio listener statistics on a monthly basis. RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research Ltd) carry out this survey with approximately 21,000 participants each month. The survey is taken amongst adult listeners. In the UK, according to census there are around 45,000,000 adults so the selection used by RAJAR still only represents around 0.046% or slightly less than ½ % of overall adult population.
To place this into context, 500 against 10,000,000 timeshare owners represent 0.005%. For the 500 non timeshare owners, 500 against 258m represent 0.00019%. From these statistics, how can readers of the ARDA survey results really believe that they represent a fair cross section of both timeshare and non timeshare owners?
Maybe greater numbers of participants and some more pointed survey questions may reveal different results:
- Do your maintenance fees represent good value?
- Do you feel the annual increases are fair?
- Are you always able to book your first choice?
- In general, is availability acceptable?
- Do exchange companies work for you?
- Do you feel pressured each time you visit?
- What overall improvements would you like to see?
As we alluded to above, these sorts of questions may reveal answers ARDA don’t want to hear, but if, as a trade association, they are prepared to take their heads out of the sand, then the surveys which reveal the truth followed by answers acted on will give a much clearer path to once again make the industry more consumer centric, rather than developer centric.
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