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Monday 12 March 2018

Hotel Hustle

Column by: Shanella Pantophlet

By the People, for the People

The one thing that really separates traditional chain hotels and timeshare resorts is the
hierarchy structure. Chain hotels usually consist of various levels from the company
owners, to the CEO’s, corporate teams and executive committees for the individual
properties. Everyone on the chain of command has both experience and education in
the hospitality industry and as I’ve stated before they continue to build their knowledge
as the field keeps growing and changing.

Timeshares however have a vastly different hierarchy concept in which they function
as an HOA that has a board of directors comprised of owners at the resort, but also
have a management team that consists of individuals educated and experienced in
hospitality. Each structure obviously has its pros and cons, but in timeshare decisions
made by the board of directors has consequences that not only affect the business,
but the other members who in this case are stakeholders in the property.

In an ideal situation the board of directors who are voted in by the membership would
have some working knowledge of hospitality, if not then they should work with the
management team towards the best interests of the resort. It’s glaringly obvious, when
comparing timeshare resorts on the Island where the board and management team
work well together and where this is not the case or where the board may be inexperienced, but not willing to defer to the team assigned to run
the hotel.

The biggest issue however comes when those on the board and the ones who voted for them forget that they are there to serve, not to dictate.
In my experience and in speaking with colleagues at various other resorts, we all have stories of members who join the board to laud that status
of “board member” over people and are interested in their own agenda instead of what is best for the resort as a whole. It’s rather difficult to
work with a board more concerned with elevating themselves than achieving goals that will continue to make the timeshare profitable and
sustainable long past their terms.

Luckily however timeshares do have a system of checks and balances to hold the board accountable. The system consists of weekly members
meetings, twice annual board of directors meetings and most importantly the yearly convocation which members must vote on. It is up to the
members to be actively engaged in reviewing minutes on the member’s forum, attending the meetings and carefully reading through and ask-
ing questions about what is proposed in the convocation before voting. Most importantly again is that they do vote, because any actions taken
by management is based on what the majority decides in those votes. Sadly and despite best efforts there seems to only ever be a small majority
actually voting and thus making decisions for in some cases over 7000 members.
The biggest threat to any timeshare is an apathetic membership base who, fail to hold the board accountable. Ultimately the community of
owners must be engaged and active to ensure that their investment continues to grow in value over the course of their ownership, which in most
cases is a lifetime. q

Aruban born and bred Shanella Pantophlet is passionate about tour-
ism. That is the world she studied and works in, so we might as well call
her a specialist. Luckily for Aruba Today Shanella also loves to write.
And together with the fact that the majority of our readers are tourists,
we found ourselves a perfect combination for a column: Hotel Hustle.