Carolinian
TUG Member
Former DAE USA employee here. DAE Europe is a franchise. The other DAEs are subsidiaries owned by corporate. All the IT and back end coding for all DAE is done in Australia and the only control the local offices have is cosmetic changes to the website (images and verbiage). The entire exchange platform and website infrastructure is all run out of Australia, which made things interested if we had to discuss something. Lots of email exchanges and late afternoon local calls to speak to people in Australia just getting in to work.
One thing DAE is doing is running the exchanges for smaller timeshare groups. This started with redweek.com as the DAE exchange platform was always the engine behind the exchange. I don't know the number now, but DAE had a few resorts and was negotiating with a few more to white brand the exchange platform, and allow a resort group to brand it with all exchanges actually being run out of the "local" DAE office. Might be a reason why RCI isn't taking over and shutting down DAE instantly, as those contracts state, I believe, that DAE will be the behind-the-scenes company for a set number of years.
Another reason why RCI may hold off on dissolving the DAE brand is DAE is the largest exchange company in Australia/New Zealand. I believe RCI is going to want to move slowly as to not alienate exchanger in the region. Short term, this is where RCI will find their quickest return on investment. Not to mention, keeping the Australia office open with former DAE founder F. Taylor in charge means less likely to have turnover in the IT Department.
Eventually, I don't see DAE surviving as a separate brand long term. Once RCI gets the IT and coding it needs from DAE, feels comfortable rebranding in Australia, and let the white brand contracts run out, there will be no reason to keep DAE around. My guess, and this is just a guess with no inside info, is DAE will cease to be in the next 3-5 years.