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Timeshare Consumers Association

Timeshare Facts & Statistics - 2001

No one single organization collects and publishes statistics on the timeshare industry on a regular basis - and Europe is especially badly served with a total lack of statistics being avaialble since 1999. The most comprehensive reports are by RCI Consulting but their latest report, November 1998, only covers the US.

So our statistics are culled from a variety of sources, some using collection methods incompatible with each other, making the following information "approx!".

TCA also publise occasional reports - click here

On this page:

• United Kingdom
• Europe (EU)
• The World
• State of Implementation of Timeshare Directive in Europe

United Kingdom

UK Owners
 

Year	Number of Owners
1993	275,000
1994	298.000
1995	312,000
1996	330,000
1997	344,000
1998	365,000
1999	380,000
2000	390,000
2001	405,000

 
 

• one quarter own in UK resorts
• three quarters own abroad, mostly in Spain (Canaries being the most popular)  and Portugal but with modest numbers in Italy, France, Austria etc.
• each owner has approx. 1.3 weeks

UK Resorts

• 131 Resorts:-
  • 81 in England (including a number of canal boat bases)
  • 27 in Scotland
  • 12 in Wales
  • 9 in Ireland
  • 2 in Isle of Man/Guernsey
  Resorts vary in size from 2 apartments/units up to 150 with an average of just under 30 units
   
• Costs for UK owners:-
  • Average Purchase Price:-
    • New £6,500 (UK Resorts have a lower average than Spain etc.)
    • Resale £1,900 (UK Resorts have a higher average than Spain etc.)
  • Annual Management Fees:-
    • Average for 2 bedroom units £275 in 1998 (but some resorts impose additional levies etc.).

Sales to UK citizens

• New sales figures have proven impossible to gauge accurately - figures produced by developers bear no relationship to year-on-year quoted ownership figures. But new sales into UK resorts were estimated at just under 8,000 in 1999.
• Resales. Estimated that just under 8,000 resales were made to UK citizens - UK and foreign resorts - in 1997 and just over 8,000 in 1998 with 1999 showing a further increase on 1998.
  Worth around £15M

Repossessions:-

• Resorts are very reticent to disclose repossession figures, but our best estimates are that 1,000 repossessions took place at UK resorts in 1997 and a substantially higher figure at Spanish resorts.Repossessions have increased very substantially each year since 1997.

Complaints:-

• The number of complaints received by the Office of Fair Trading about timeshare:-
  • Year 1995 - 3,900
  • Year 1996 - 4,900
  • Year 1997 - 4,900
  • Year 1998 - 5,900
  • Year 1999 - 5,800
  • Year 2000 - 4,900
  • Year 2001 - 6,200
  The main complaints were about:-
  • Misleading claims by sellers - approx.70%
  • Non-delivery or substandard service - approx. 10%

Contribution to the UK economy:-

• Timeshare industry claims (1998) that it contributes just over £100M to the UK economy annually.
  Equivalent to just under 0.02% of the Gross Domestic Product.

Exchange Companies active in the UK

• R.C.I.
  • Number of UK members:-  205,000
  • 100 UK resorts
        34% are "Gold Crown" and 24% "Resort of International Distinction"
  • Number of exchanges for UK members not disclosed
• I.I.
  • Number of owners in UK not disclosed
  • 26 affiliated resorts of which 35% are "Five Star"
• U.K.R.E., Dial-an-Exchange, Timex and Timelinx do not affiliate resorts nor disclose levels of membership

Europe (EU)

European Owners

 1.14 million  owners in Europe

•   32% in the UK
•   19% in Germany & Austria
•    Italy, France, Spain and Scandinavia sharing the bulk of the rest

 

European Resorts

•  1,400 Resorts in Europe of which 40% are in Spain

 

For a more detailed statistical report on  Europe for 2005 see here

 

The World

World Sales

• 2000        $7.75B
• 2001        $8.6B

World Owners

• 6.2 million owners in the world
  • 2.7 million live in the United States (equivalent to 1.95% of households)

World Resorts

• 5,300 resorts in 90 countries.
  • 1,600 in the United States, with Florida and California being the most popular states.
  • 450  in Spain (incl. Canaries and Balearics)

Exchange Companies

• RCI
  • 3,310 affiliated resorts
    17% of the resorts are "Gold Crown" and 17% "Resort of International Distinction"
  • in 87 countries
  • "nearly 2.4 million members" - living in 211 countries
• II
  • "over 1,000,000 member families" worldwide
  • "over 1,800 in more than 70 countries" (Some resorts affiliate to more than one exchange company)

United States -  update for year 2007

Ernst Young LLP produced a report covering the US timeshare indsutry for the year 2007:

• Sales  value                  $10.6 billion
• Number of resorts          1,641
• Units of accomodation    180,158
• Weeks of accomodation  9 million
• Weeks sold                   6.5 million (72%)
• Number of owners          4.7 million