George Orwell’s famously dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” is required reading for many – if not all – of us in high school. You may recall, one of the disturbing features in the story is how the fictional country of Oceania uses its official language, Newspeak.
The folks in charge use a lot of contradictory language to hide from the people what’s really going on. So, for example, the Ministry of Truth is responsible for spreading propaganda and lies. The Ministry of Plenty promotes food rationing. The Ministry of Love tortures the party’s dissenters.
Even though “Nineteen Eighty-Four” is a work of fiction, it is what immediately came to mind as we were learning more about the American Resort Development Association Resort Owners Coalition (ARDA-ROC).
ARDA-ROC, it would seem, also uses lots of contradictory language that makes it difficult at first to see exactly what it’s up to.
Suspicious, wouldn’t you say?
On its website, ARDA-ROC proclaims: “Established in 1989, ARDA-ROC was the first organization funded specifically to advocate for timeshare owners…”
Ok – so ARDA-ROC lobbies local governments, state legislatures and Congress.
But when you look at ARDA-ROC’s legislative priorities, it’s clear that “timeshare owners” is actually ARDA-speak for “timeshare companies”!!
For example, just this year, ARDA-ROC succeeded in killing South Carolina legislation that would have doubled the rescission period for timeshare buyers from five day to ten days, giving them more time to review their contracts and cancel their purchase if needed.
In Florida, ARDA-ROC was successful in making sure a proposal to establish a statewide ombudsman to resolve disputes between members of homeowners associations, including timeshare owners, and property managers died quietly in committee.
And in New York it tried (but failed) to defeat a law that requires timeshare companies to provide notice to timeshare owners at least 90 days before initiating foreclosure proceedings.
It is very clear that ARDA-ROC has been busy, busy, busy protecting timeshare companies, but maybe not so much timeshare owners.
And that is not the most galling deception, you see. Because you have to ask… who exactly is “specifically funding” all this “advocacy,” according to ARDA-ROC?
Well, back to the website, which says:
“ARDA-ROC exists for the benefit of timeshare owners and is generously funded by 1.5+ million owners across the country that voluntarily contribute annually to our efforts.”
You read that right.
Timeshare owners are paying for ARDA-ROC’s lobbying – often AGAINST their own interests and FOR timeshare company interests!
And that’s not all. The phrase “voluntarily contribute” is pretty much just another example of the ARDA-speak lexicon. Because most timeshare owners probably aren’t even aware they are making this contribution.
As one handy guide to Hilton Grand Vacations timeshare statements demonstrates, most timeshare companies just automatically include the “voluntary” contribution to ARDA-ROC in the total bill they send to owners.
One has to burrow through the fine print of your contract to even discover that you can opt out!
Orwell’s Ministry of Truth would be so proud of ARDA-ROC.
We wonder if Jason Gamel, the President and CEO of ARDA, is too. Let’s email him at jagamel@arda.org to ask what’s ARDA-speak for “deception.”
And let’s make other folks who are fluent in ARDA-speak aware that we’re losing nothing in translation.
Travis Bary, the co-president of Capital Vacations, and Ken McKelvey, an executive consultant to Capital Vacations, are on the ARDA-ROC board. You can email them at tbary@capitalvacations.com and klm@capitalvacations.com.
Or you can email their fellow ARDA-ROC board members Mark Wang, the CEO of Hilton Grand Vacations, and Gordon Gurnik, the Chief Operating Officer of Hilton Grand Vacations. Mark’s email is mark.wang@hgv.com and Gordon’s is gordon.gurnik@hgv.com.
Does your timeshare company use language that’s hard to interpret? Use the information in this list of ARDA VIPs to tell your company’s leaders to use plain English.
Have a phrase of your own that belongs in the ARDA-speak dictionary? Share it with us at info@timesharefacts.com.
PS: Follow us on social media. Twitter Facebook Instagram
