Quick: what is the most exciting news someone could deliver to you?
“You’ve won the lottery!”
“Here’s a surprise bonus!”
“You’re inheriting a windfall!”
We’ll admit, those are pretty good contenders.
But if you are a timeshare company, our guess is that “Timeshare industry annual report!” wins the prize.
If you read on, we know you’ll agree with us.
Why? Because we just finished perusing the “2025 State of the Vacation Timeshare Industry” published by the American Resort Developers Association (ARDA), the trade association of the timeshare industry. We encourage you to download your own copy, because it makes for some scintillating reading.
Here’s the headliner:
Average timeshare maintenance fees increased an eye-watering 17.5% in 2024!
It’s all there on page six of the report, where it shows that the average maintenance fee rose to a hefty $1,480 in 2024, up from an already sizeable $1,260 in 2023.
That’s a SEVENTEEN AND HALF PERCENT increase!
By way of comparison, inflation rose by “only” 2.95% last year.
Think about it. The cost of inflation is hurting just about everyone.
And timeshare maintenance fees went up nearly SIX TIMES FASTER THAN INFLATION in 2024.
Funny how ARDA forgot to mention that in their report.
Considering the big fee increases, it’s not surprising the report also found that maintenance fees now make up 83% of timeshare operating revenues. We found that little nugget on page 18.
With timeshare companies so reliant on maintenance fees, you can see where things are going – and so does the report. It found that a lot of timeshare companies are already planning another round of steep increases in 2025.
To quote from page 16 of the ARDA report: “Nearly half (49%) of responding resorts anticipate their next maintenance billing increase will be 10% or more…”
And that’s what they are saying even before this year is over!
Like we said, exciting news – for the timeshare companies.
Frightening news for timeshare owners.
It’s time to tell the timeshare companies that timeshare owners want their timeshare vacations to be exciting, not their timeshare bills.
Let’s start with 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. You can email him at gordon.gurnik@hgv.com. Hilton Grand Vacations helped finance the report (see page two) so he should be familiar with these figures.
We should also email Travis Bary, Co-President of Capital Vacations, at tbary@capitalvacations.com. He’s a member of ARDA’s board. Capital Vacations also helped pay for the report, so we’re guessing he’ll know what you’re talking about when he reads your email.
Finally, there’s Jason Gamel, the President and CEO of ARDA. Let’s find out whether he would call the state of the timeshare industry strong when owners are expected to pay back-to-back double digit fee increases. His email is jgamel@arda.org.
Worried about the state of your timeshare company’s fee increases? Check this list of ARDA VIPs to find the contact information for your company’s leaders and send them your thoughts.
Have a personal report about outrageous fee increases to make? Share it with us at info@timesharefacts.com
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