My Choice for a new Worldmark Property: Royal Huahine in French Polynesia

[chemteach]

The Royal Huahine Resort in French Polynesia is for sale for $8.8 million. 18 overwater bungalows and 22 additional units. Staying here now. It’s absolutely beautiful!! What would it take to convince Worldmark to buy it!!??

 

[ecwinch]

Incriminating photos, video, and eyewitnesses of CEO Michael Brown involved in some indiscretion.

 

[bizaro86]

Incriminating photos, video, and eyewitnesses of CEO Michael Brown involved in some indiscretion.

Come on now, don't exaggerate. Photos and video would probably be enough.

Seriously though, that seems like a great deal, even admitting I know basically nothing about the place. I figure they could easily assign 15k credits per week on average. An overwater bungalow would be equivalent accomodation value to the current worldmark portfolio at 25k/week or more, so I think 15k/week on average is reasonable.

40 suites x 50 weeks/year x 15,000 credits/week x $2/credit = $60 MM in retail sales.

Figure they pay $9 MM after the cost of fitting out and that would be 15% cost of goods sold, which is in the range that they use for new acquisitions.

The bigget benefit to Wyn is that it would almost certainly improve sales. I think they would get lots of people sending their children/grandchildren etc on honeymoons, which would be an exceptionally productive sales audience.

Also, having pictures of an over water bungalow at every sales center would probably be good for sales. Even just having the parking pass people have that as something new to dangle would probably increase tour flow for awhile.

So it would be acceptable as a new development from a cost perspective with meaningful sales benefits. It would probably cost more to maintain than the new credits would generate in MF, but given the small size I think that could probably be absorbed by the remainder of the base without much issue.

 

[geist1223]

More likely for WMSP. They have expended into Japan, Germany, and Italy.

 

[bizaro86]

More likely for WMSP. They have expended into Japan, Germany, and Italy.

Yeah, I'm just dreaming. If they did it, I think the most likely would be WMSP, then the Asian club, then Worldmark.

 

[chemteach]

It’s always nice to dream... This place is quite a gem. On a three week holiday that started by getting an RCI exchange made 18 months ago for a cruise in French Polynesia. Then we added a week to the front and back end of the cruise. 18 months later and here we are in the overwater bungalow for three nights, then on to the 7 day cruise. I Keep pinching myself to see if I’m dreaming!

 

[DaveNV]

Has anybody considered the obvious: Try to contact the Execs or WM directly, and telling them about this resort being for sale? It sounds like a wonderful place, and I’m sure WM has some sort of group that handles new acquisitions. Worth a try?

Dave

 

[geist1223]

My experience in the past is that the WMTC BOD stays out of these decisions. They simply accept whatever Wyndham tenders. That is how we ended up with 2 Resorts in the Blaine area. Also how we end up with way to many Presidential and Penthouse Units. The new Resort in St George is another example. Wyndham wants high Point value Resorts so they have more Points to sell. They really do not care about the average owner.

 

[bizaro86]

Has anybody considered the obvious: Try to contact the Execs or WM directly, and telling them about this resort being for sale? It sounds like a wonderful place, and I’m sure WM has some sort of group that handles new acquisitions. Worth a try?

Dave

You'd want to try the Wyndham group that does development, not Worldmark, as I believe Worldmark is specifically prohibited from adding new resorts on its own.

 

[ecwinch]

Has anybody considered the obvious: Try to contact the Execs or WM directly, and telling them about this resort being for sale? It sounds like a wonderful place, and I’m sure WM has some sort of group that handles new acquisitions. Worth a try?

Dave

Who would you reach out to? The dotted line between a WM owner to the people that make those decisions would look a little like the journey of the tribes of israel in the wilderness.