It’s always been a bit of a headscratcher.
 
If the vision of the timeshare industry is, as its trade association, the American Resort Development Association (ARDA), claims, “to put all timeshare owners on their dream vacation,” then why are there so many, many complaints from timeshare owners about the lack of timeshare availability?
 
Whether you’re with a company like Capital Vacations, Hilton Grand Vacations or Diamond (owned by Hilton Grand Vacations), there just never seems to be space available when you want to book through your timeshare company.
 
And yet, timeshare owners keep discovering that they (and the general public) can book reservations online at the very same properties, at the very same time!
 
Adding insult to injury, owners have even found that it costs the general public less to stay in those properties than it costs the timeshare owners!
 
It’s quite the mystery, indeed.
 
Now, thanks to ARDA’s “2025 State of the Vacation Timeshare Industry” annual report, the mystery can be solved.
 
The first clue can be found on page four, where there’s a nice graphic that shows that timeshare rental revenues more than doubled from $1.3 billion in 2020 to $3.2 billion in 2024.
 
That’s a 146% increase in RENTAL revenues in just five years!

And on page 27, we found another clue: “In 2024, revenue for rentals continues to see strong growth. This is in part due to higher rental rates, but also due to increased occupancy related to rentals.”
 
Employing some simple powers of deduction, we can conclude that timeshare companies are renting out more of their units (“increased occupancy”) which decreases the availability for actual timeshare owners.
 
And page 27 features another piece of evidence. The report says timeshare companies have been shuttering older resorts “which has caused the overall resort and unit counts to decrease by about 5% since 2020.”
 
So, timeshare owners can’t find anything available because renters are making up a bigger share of shrinking pie!
 
Mystery solved!
 
Timeshare companies are growing their rental business at the expense of timeshare owners!
 
It does make us wonder though… are timeshare owners benefitting from any of that rental income?  It sure doesn’t seem that way. In fact, it seems like timeshare owners are facing ever increasing maintenance fees just to upkeep their properties, just so timeshare companies can rent them out for greater profit!
 
And, who do we think are the biggest culprits in this whole scheme?
 
Well, waaaaay back in Appendix E (page 49 if you want to look for yourself) the report tells us: “In recent years, the number of resorts has decreased slightly due to industry consolidation and realignment.”
 
“Industry consolidation.” That means it’s the larger companies who are leading the charge on (and benefitting from) rental growth.
 
Well, well, well.
 
We can’t gather all of the culprits in the library like they do in an Agatha Christie mystery, but we can let these timeshare companies know we’ve figured out that they are guilty.
 
First, let’s tell Gordon Gurnik, the Chair of the ARDA Board of Directors, who is also the Chief Operating Officer of Hilton Grand Vacations, one of the largest ARDA members. Hilton Grand Vacations is a “Platinum Sponsor” of the report (check out page two), so our findings shouldn’t come as a surprise to him. Email him at gordon.gurnik@hgv.com and ask if he’s ready to confess to plotting to bring in even more rental income.
 
Then let’s turn our attention to his accomplice, Travis Bary, Co-President of Capital Vacations and a member of ARDA’s board. Capital Vacations is an “Underwriter” of the report, so presumably he’s familiar with the evidence at hand. Email him at tbary@capitalvacations.com to see if he’s ready to talk about his role in the curious case of rental income increases.
 
Lastly, we come to Jason Gamel, the President and CEO of ARDA. He’s a known associate of all the big timeshare company leaders. Let’s email him at jgamel@arda.org to see if he has an alibi for looking the other way while all this has been going on.
 
Is the lack of availability a mystery at your timeshare company? Use this list of ARDA VIPs to interrogate your company’s leaders.
  
Do you have vital information related to the disappearance of timeshare availability? Send your tip to info@timesharefacts.com 
  
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