Marriott Vacations Worldwide 3Q Sales Decline; Stock Tanks

[Dean]

(and it needs to actually save money)

Or at least think they will save money.

 

[WBP]

 

[heathpack]

Maybe the problem is simply that they are pushing a bad product and they have reached the limit of selling folks on something expensive that doesn't make sense.

The old weeks model made sense but the points system is overpriced. They got greedy, plain and simple. They seem to continue to try to remove value and expect to be able to charge a premium for it.

And don't even get me started on what they did to the Hyatt system.

 

[RENTER]

Simple solution to this problem. Do what Wyndham did with the owner priority period. A limit on guest passes at popular resorts during popular dates.

Also consider putting a limit on the number of points an owner can own. People called me a commercial mega renter. But I never was. To have their VIP benefits I had to own a lot of points. I would never have
bought if I was told I could not rent.

To cover those costs, I had to rent often just to break even. I booked weekends because they were easier to rent often to locals. Some bought in.

Also, the owner priority period had no effect on me. I needed the VIP discounts to help cover the costs, but they did not kick in until 60 days before. So I took whatever was available which were the less popular resorts

 

[amycurl]

That one couple really gets around ! One quarter they’re in Charleston, the next in Nashville… And they’re not even MVC owners, since there’s no MVCs for them to stay in those places, yet!


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[craigd]

FFS folks - it is not that hard. The "commercial renter" red herring is pure deflection that the smart money saw right through. The MF's have outpaced rental rates, the market for their securitized sketchy loans to new buyers has softened, and the smart money knows they are incredibly vulnerable to a class action based on theories of unjust enrichment via breach of fiduciary duty through thinly veiled/easily pierced alter egos, not to even mention SEC scrutiny of relationship between MVW and trusts that are not rolled into MVW financials. It was all easily seen in the cash flow from earlier reports.

 

[davidvel]

Maybe the problem is simply that they are pushing a bad product and they have reached the limit of selling folks on something expensive that doesn't make sense.

The old weeks model made sense but the points system is overpriced. They got greedy, plain and simple. They seem to continue to try to remove value and expect to be able to charge a premium for it.

And don't even get me started on what they did to the Hyatt system.

This 100%. Also as another posted noted, they have ridden the 10% * budget management fee for far too long, exponentially rising MFs as they spend. The weeks program is still an incredible deal for owners that can lock off, and especially those that are enrolled.

Points is a joke. They thought they could sell the smoke and mirrors you can go anywhere just buy 2,500 points (for $45,000 + $2K+MF each year) and you'll be in a 2BR oceanfront room in Maui in the new towers. (Yet it would take double that in $$ to do so if someone looked.)

Until people started looking for the reality and the internet showed them the picture. The points program is so sterile and verifiable as to what you need and how much it costs that it becomes simple math and no longer pictures and dreams of what a beautiful vacation might be.

 

[m61376]

While I also agree that the points system has questionable value, clearly there are many here who think it's great, so I guess for some there's great value. And there are ways to get good value, and perhaps that's what salespeople should focus on. For years they thrived on telling lies, or half truths at best, and sold to people who believed what they wanted to hear. But today's customer is savvier; they can attend a presentation and within half an hour have scoured the Internet to find out if things are true.

Instead of painting unrealistic pictures, they should focus on individual needs. For example, a young couple without children can benefit form studios at bargain rates, and can add to their ownership as their needs (and income) changes. Families needing larger accommodations can stretch their points with Sunday to Friday stays, or perhaps experience a different area in a hotel for the weekend for longer stays. Emphasize the cost savings of having kitchen facilities and grills; even breakfasts and bringing drinks to the pool saves hundreds. If you eat breakfast in and grill 2 nights of the week, a family of four offsets about half their MFs. Little kids- how nice to be able to have a separate room, a kitchen and laundry. The list goes on. Instead of playing the smoke and mirrors game, and hoping for gullible prey, they might actually be successful if they simplified their presentations to show how it can fit their needs, rather than creating the illusion they can go anywhere they want for a week in a 2 BR anytime they want to travel.

While personally I would have a hard time making a points purchase today, many of the same reasons we bought weeks when we did ring true today. The consensus generally was it's not an investment in the traditional sense of the word, but an investment in family, in the security of knowing that an annual trip was mostly paid for, the benefit of "since you have it you'll use it" and won't put off a vacation, etc.. The things that pull at heartstrings, rather than trying purely to make a case for dollars and cents savings, that's hard to justify alone with the points system.

I think the intangible advantages make a more cogent argument than trying to justify based on a purely mathematical (and illogical) cost analysis.

 

[heathpack]

I think the intangible advantages make a more cogent argument than trying to justify based on a purely mathematical (and illogical) cost analysis.

Except that it literally has to make mathematical sense because renting a place with a kitchen and washer dryer isn’t hard nowadays. You can try to sell all of those features but if I can rent a condo with all of those features for 75% the price per week without the complexities of ownership, then I’m probably not buying your timeshare product.

Their existing market is aging out and they went all in on squeezing every dram of profit from that pool. MVCI needs a huge reset of their mindset- instead of squeezing your owners more and more, return to a better value proposition. Watching MVCI double down ever harder on their truly awful Portfolio points system (Hyatt) is painful. The mindset is clearly “we’ll squeeze em so hard that they’ll relent and buy”. Then they are confused when consumers don’t buy. Hmm, I wonder why?