# Important notice from Club Sunterra



## JoeMid (Sep 12, 2007)

Received today by email.





> Dear Member,
> As you know, since Diamond Resorts International® purchased Sunterra I have been conducting a review into the member usage and relative costs of the European Resort Collection with two purposes in mind: to reduce, if possible, the operating costs; and to increase member choice.
> It is therefore with great pleasure that I am now able to offer Broome Park Mansion House apartments, situated within the Grade I listed hall, for reservations.  Broome Park has always been an immensely popular UK destination, especially for the golfers amongst the membership, and so having more availability here will be a great benefit.  Further information about the apartments, their facilities and the points values will be made available to you in the very near future.
> In addition, during the company-wide recent review, it became evident that one resort in particular was more expensive to operate than others, and furthermore was not as popular with members as our other locations.  This resort is Carlton Court in London which, as you can imagine, is expensive to run because of its city location.  Analysis of a number of years’ reservations established that the resort was not well utilized by members, possibly because of the myriad of hotel choices in such a large city and the related costs involved in such a stay.  It was therefore proposed that this resort be taken out of the Club Sunterra Trust and European Resort Collection.
> ...


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## pgnewarkboy (Sep 12, 2007)

*This is a bad thing*

We went to Carlton Court a few years ago and thought it was a great location.  It was hard to get into because of the desirability of being in london.  What's the big deal with Broome?  It is not in london.  It does not serve the same purpose as Carlton Court.  I don't see how this is an improvement.


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## KforKitty (Sep 13, 2007)

I'm surprised by this as well considering Carlton Court has very few amenities to support that drain resources.  I'm also surprised that about its utilisation but I think this has much more to do with the high cost in terms of points than the availability of other nearby residences.

Kitty


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## Hoc (Sep 13, 2007)

Well, there goes London.  My guess is that Paris is next.


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## Carolinian (Sep 14, 2007)

IMHO this may be about disposing of assets with high disposal value and replacing them with assets that can be acquired cheaply.  With London property prices, Carlton Court is probably more valuable to Cloobeck as an asset to sell than as one to run for the benefit of members.  Broome Park, however, expires as a timeshare in 2014 and its owners association is selling association inventory cheap.

A good deal for Cloobeck and a bad deal for members.  Aren't point systems controlled by self-seeking developers just dandy?????

Given the high demand for anything in London, and very low supply, Cloobeck's contention that a resort there is ''underutilized'' can be nothing more than a bald-faced lie.

What other properties that are particularly valuable on the real estate market will be next?  The Tugger who guessed Paris may have something!

Cloobeck isn't selling off all of Europe, just the parts that will make him a lot of money.


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## dougp26364 (Sep 19, 2007)

Hoc said:


> Well, there goes London.  My guess is that Paris is next.




I recently had a conversation with Mr. Cloobeck, chairman of DRI. I believe he indicated that DRI/Sunterra would be expanding it's international destinations and, if memory serves me correctly Paris was one of the cities mentioned for expansion. I'm certain that Mexico was mentioned in our converstaion. We covered a lot of ground in a short conversation so I hate to say things with great certainty. I would hate to misquote Mr. Cloobeck or give false impressions to DRI/Sunterra members. 

There is a comment that I find interesting on the exhcnage forum about I.I. and Carlton Court in London. One of the comments was that Carlton Court traded in the lower rated resorts with I.I. and higher rated resorts might not see availability there. That would fit in with DRI/Sunterra wanting to upgrade their resort offerings to higher quality resorts in generally good locations and get rid of lower quality resorts in poorer locations.

I am at a disadvantage because I have never been to Carlton Court. I do not know the condition of the rooms, the amenities offered by the resort or the general quality of it's location in London.


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## Carolinian (Sep 25, 2007)

For more discussions from European Sunterra owners on the situation with Carlton Court, and its implications (not positive) for other Sunterra Europe resorts, see:

www.madtrot.com/21.html

BTW, it one wants a points-based European timeshare mini-system that is adding urban t/s resorts instead of selling them off like Sunterra, they should look at Hapimag.


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