“Follow the money.”
That’s the advice the source Deep Throat gives to reporter Bob Woodward in the movie, “All the President’s Men” as Woodword tries to get to the bottom of the Watergate scandal.
And it’s good advice for anyone trying to get to the bottom of the relationship between ARDA-ROC, the American Resort Development Association Resort Owners Coalition, and ARDA, the trade association for the timeshare industry.
The ARDA-ROC website claims the organization is “Powered by ARDA.” But when you follow the money, you can see that ARDA-ROC – an organization that claims to represent the interests of timeshare owners – is actually funneling millions of timeshare owners’ dollars to ARDA, the voice of timeshare companies in Washington.
Let’s start at the beginning of the money trail.
ARDA-ROC proudly declares: “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.”
Those so-called “voluntary” contributions are frequently just automatically included in a timeshare company’s “Total Due” calculation on the bills it sends owners.
Voluntary? You be the judge.
According to ARDA-ROC’s Form 990, an IRS form all tax-exempt organizations are required to file, ARDA-ROC collected more than $3,000,000 in dues from timeshare owners in 2024.
And where did all that money go?
Well, ARDA-ROC gave a huge chunk of it – $1,473,450 – directly to ARDA.
That’s more than 48% of all its contributions!
So, nearly half of all the money that timeshare owners send to ARDA-ROC is slipped to ARDA. And what does ARDA use it for?
Well, given the mission of ARDA, we know it advocates for the interests of the timeshare companies, it helps advertise the interests of the timeshare industry and it has pretty hefty salaries to pay to its own executives. Does that sound like ARDA-ROC “exists for the benefit of timeshare owners,” like it claims?
And 2024 isn’t just a one-off year. In fact, Form 990s for 2022 and 2023 show that the amount of money ARDA-ROC hands over to ARDA just keeps going up!
What about the rest?
That’s where another twist in the money trail comes in. The 990 forms show that over the years ARDA-ROC has been very, very busy salting away more than $8.7 million in investments and savings.
So why does a non-profit organization like ARDA-ROC keep coming back to owners to ask for more contributions if it has $8.7 million in reserve?
And how does having such a large amount of cash in the bank benefit the timeshare owners who gave ARDA-ROC the money?
Those are good questions.
Maybe the ARDA-ROC board could provide some guidance. There are some very familiar faces there we could ask.
A good person to start with would be Gordon Gurnik, the Chief Operating Officer of Hilton Grand Vacations. He’s also the Chair of ARDA’s board, so he should know a lot about the money finding its way from ARDA-ROC to ARDA. His email is gordon.gurnik@hgv.com. If you can’t get an answer out of him, try his fellow ARDA-ROC board member Mark Wang, the CEO of Hilton Grand Vacations, at mark.wang@hgv.com. We’re pretty sure they talk.
We could also turn to two other ARDA-ROC board members who have been down this road together: Travis Bary, the co-president of Capital Vacations, and Ken McKelvey, an executive consultant to Capital Vacations. You can email them at tbary@capitalvacations.com and klm@capitalvacations.com.
Finally, we could seek out Jason Gamel, the President and CEO of ARDA, for some direction. Like Gordon Gurnik, he’s on the boards of ARDA-ROC and ARDA, so, you know, he knows where all the money is ending up. His email is jgamel@arda.org.
Think the “voluntary” contributions you’re making to ARDA-ROC have lost their way? Use this this list of ARDA VIPs to see if your company’s leaders can tell you where they went.
Have you gotten lost on the ARDA-ROC money trail? Send an SOS to us at info@timesharefacts.com.
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