Timeshare Leads and Marketing Technology Blog

The American Resort Development Association will hold its upcoming annual convention and exposition from March 14-18 in Las Vegas. The convention will take place at the luxurious Venetian Hotel and Casino.

In past years, the ARDA convention has had an impressive turnout with more than 3,500 participants from a variety of resort development professions.    This includes industry insiders from over 20 countries that are ready to share their expertise on subjects like the evolving timeshare marketplace, resort branding, timeshare marketing and more.

The convention will feature a variety of exhibitors who are showcasing the resort industry’s newest products and services as well as several keynote speakers.   This conference is an important mainstay for anyone in the resort industry for several reasons.   Those launching  a new resort industry product or service can gain face time and important business leads on the exposition floor.  Property managers and developers also have a chance to check out these services and see how they can benefit their resorts in 2010.

Here are a few of the highlights from ARDA’s 2010 Convention:

• Sunday, March 14 – RCI/AIF Open Golf Tournament
• Monday, March 15 – Principles of Timeshare I: Building Blocks of the Industry
• Tuesday, March 16 – Sales and Marketing Forum: Branding and Selling through Electronic Media
• Wednesday, March 17 – Awards Gala Dinner and Entertainment
• Thursday, March 18 – Interactive Workshop: What it Takes to be a Market Leader in Today’s Dynamic Global Marketplace

Whitecap LG is one service that can help resorts in 2010 using a cutting edge timeshare tour generation product that brings in qualified tour prospects at a fraction of the standard cost.  Feel free to Contact Whitecap for more information.

Get more information on ARDA’s 2010 Convention, including full schedules and registration information.

Marketing your resort’s timeshare offerings can often be a difficult process because there are so many different directions you could take.  Whitecap’s cutting edge timeshare marketing software minimizes the difficulty by harnessing the advantages of several options and applying them in a simple, straightforward way.

One of the advantages to leveraging Whitecap’s timeshare tour generation technology is its ability to utilize several on-site mechanisms for generating tours.   We believe in optimizing our mini-vacation landing pages to target a span of potential customers.  After Whitecap hones in on a potential tour  by directing them to a resort’s mini-vacation page, it provides the customer several options to book:

1.  Call In Tours: This option is the least ‘invasive,’ allowing a potential tour to  call in to an easily accessible 1-800 number that re-routes the person to the resort’s phone room.  This potential tour has already had access to a variety of information about the package, including prices, rooms, pictures, and terms of use; giving the phone operator a good head start in booking the customer.

2. Pay Later Tours: This option allows for a potential tour to submit their contact information, booking dates, and sign off on the resort’s tour requirements.  The customer info is then entered into the Whitecap database, where a phone operator or administrator can access and process the submission.   Automated emails will notify any designated resort administrators about freshly generated tours.

3.  Complete Bookings: Whitecap provides a third option for those potential tours that prefer to handle everything online, allowing them to select dates, sign off on tour requirements, enter payment information, and fully commit to a mini-vacation. This option mimics modern day vacation booking sites like Expedia and Orbitz so that potential tours feel comfortable throughout the process.

After a booking is completed, an automated confirmation email is forwarded to the customer, reminding them of their tour date and location, as well as providing receipt of payment. Depending on the resort’s available inventory, the customer’s vacation dates are then automatically blacked out to prevent another person from overbooking those days.

Not only does Whitecap provide a resort several ways to book potential tours, it also provides several monthly pricing plans to accommodate the budgets of small to large resorts.

If you are a fan of the travel channel or any destination related TV programming, you should check out RCI TV.  RCI TV is a new online video service that was just launched by RCI, the global leader in vacation exchange.  The company’s new web TV platform allows anybody interested in owning timeshare to check out videos of many of RCI’s resort partner destinations around the world.

These videos aren’t your standard old-school timeshare marketing materials.  RCI’s cutting-edge timeshare video network allows viewers to select from various categories of resort videos, including beach, casino, city and spa.  When a viewer has selected a desired video they can then view a wide screen, high quality and informative video that details a resort’s various amenities, rooms, as well as local hot spots.

RCI TV even has it’s own travel host – “Dan, The RCI Guy,” who can help guide visitors through the many benefits of vacation ownership.  This online TV network is a great move by RCI to reach out to a younger generation of web-savvy potential timeshare owners.  This generation works and plays online, and is more than familiar with online video viewing through sites like YouTube and Hulu.  RCI TV is a great addition to the world on online video and is sure to only get better as RCI add more resort destinations to their content roster.

One of the services that Whitecap provides hand-in-hand with it’s timeshare tour generation software is social media marketing.  ‘Social Media’ has been a recent buzz word that is getting thrown around a lot, but how do you actually use it to promote resorts and timeshares?  I’d like to review what exactly Social Media Marketing is, and in particular how it can give a healthy boost to a timeshare marketing campaign.

Social Media basically refers to a new generation of internet community.   Social media websites allow people to connect with each other through relevant topics and interests.  Social media marketing allows you to target these niches, including people, groups and locations that are relevant to your field.

One of the biggest social networking sites is Facebook.  Facebook has a multitude of location specific groups and pages that are formed around common interests.  For example if there was a ‘I Love Las Vegas Group,’  this would be a great place to tell people about your Las Vegas mini-vacation special, or some new amenities that were recently added to your resort.

Twitter is another social media site that allows you to target specific people through various conventions.  Hashtags (#) are one tool within Twitter that allow you to micro-target specific discussions based on keywords.  For example, Twitter users could be ‘tweeting’ about Las Vegas, using the hashtag #LasVegas.  This would be a great place for you to tweet about some fresh resort news:  “Our Las Vegas Resort just added a state of the art indoor pool, be sure to check it out at www.vegasresort.com #LasVegas ”

Social Aggregators like Digg and Redditt are another great way to get out the breaking news on your resort.  If you have a resort blog and frequently update it, submitting your articles to these aggregators will allow more people to find and access them.   Not only can social aggregators increase traffic to your resort or timeshare blog, but they also enable you to categorize your articles to specific topics like ‘travel.’

One of the reasons why Whitecap’s tour generation software is successful is through the use of social media marketing.  These services are fully inclusive within our monthly pricing packages.