What Swedish Death Cleaning Taught Me About Timeshare

Last week I did something called Swedish Death Cleaning. Sounds morbid but it actually was very good for me both physically and psychically. The idea is to go through your possessions, in my case I focused on carefully curated papers, and get rid of whatever you don’t want or need saving someone from having to go through piles of stuff when you die in hopes of finding something important. 

In my case, this resulted in over 25 pounds of paperwork being shredded and making a memory book of what I considered to be my most important professional accomplishments, timeshare and other. 

I discovered something really interesting and slightly unexpected. I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked for a few timeshare resorts from 2000 to about 2006. Summer Bay, Silver Lake and Celebration World Resort spring to mind. I’ve also had the opportunity to be a featured speaker at some great conferences; The Maryland Timeshare Owners Association, The National Timeshare Owners Association, DAE’s Vacation Owners Conference, The Miami Herald Travel Show, The Adventure and Luxury Travel Show in Chicago, TATOC and CRDA. 

By virtue of the fact I wrote two books and co-authored a college text, I’ve been honored with a few television appearances such as WGN and ABC in Chicago as well as CNBC. 

I’ve hosted seminars for timeshare owners and prospective timeshare owners put on by both Holiday Group and RedWeek. 

And then there were the articles that I either wrote or appeared in. (I know this is getting tedious, but hang in there, there is a point to this I promise.) These ranged from outlets that everyone knows such as The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, the in-flight publications for Air-Tran and Alaska Airlines, WalletPop, AOL Travel, The Los Angeles Times, The Orlando Business Journal, BankRate.com, The Orlando Sentinel, The Baltimore Sun, AARP Magazine, Barron’s, and Ladies Home Journal to long forgotten or defunct publications such as Grand Magazine, Cents Magazine, Smart Traveler, Hiatus Magazine and Girlfriend Getaways. 

Lastly, there were the timeshare industry trade publications: Perspective, RCI Ventures, The Resort Trades, Sharetime and TimeSharing Today. 

Trip down memory lane complete. 

What I found fascinating is that up until a few years ago, my perspective on timeshare was mostly positive. What changed?  Why do people in the industry view me with destain? Did I change?

No, it wasn’t me that changed. It is the industry that’s changed and not for the better. Where misleading sales pitches were once the exception, they’ve become more the norm. Where once it could be said that timeshare offered vacationers cost effective accommodations, there are increasingly more and better options available. Where once timeshare resorts offered a true value proposition, now anyone can stay on property as a renter usually for less than the cost of annual maintenance fees, to say nothing of initial purchase price. Where once the idea of willing your timeshare to your children was looked at as a positive, it’s now something to be avoided due to increasing costs and the fact that it’s devolved into nothing more than a reservation system. 

And where once I held out hope that the timeshare industry would grasp the fact that consumers do not like to be sold anything but prefer to buy, I have now come to the realization that they are their own worst enemy as they stubbornly cling to the “you have to buy it today and you can’t review the contract” paradigm.