Staff Writer - The Timeshare Beat
April 5, 2000
According to an article in yesterday's Indianapolis Star, which defined Resort Condominiums International as a
"timeshare condominium operator", RCI is laying off 46 managers and other professionals at the company's
Indianapolis headquarters.
The move is not unexpected, since it was announced last month that RCI would close one of its two Indianapolis
offices and lay off or reassign several hundred workers as part of a restructuring. The office is being relocated
to Parsippany, New Jersey, to be closer to parent company Cendant.
RCI employs about 1,100 people at two locations: RCI Vacation Plaza at 9998 N. Michigan Road, and 3502 Woodview
Trace. The company will move out of the Woodview Trace building, which once served as its corporate headquarters.
Cendant Corp., RCI's parent firm, moved the executive suite to its own home base of Parsippany, N.J., last year.
In addition to the 46 layoffs, another 37 workers have been offered jobs elsewhere within the company, leaving
a total of 1,074 employees in Indianapolis. According to spokeswoman Sarah McAdams, this is the final stage in
RCI's plans for firing and reassigning managers and other workers.
There had been fears expressed that the number of fired employees would number in the hundreds.
RCI was co-founded by Christel and Jon DeHaan and has become the largest timeshare exchange company in the world. Christel DeHaan bought out Jon's share of the company as part of their divorce settlement, and in 1997 sold RCI to HFS, Inc. for over half a billion dollars. In the meantime, CUC International, Inc. had purchased RCI's chief competitor, Interval International. Shortly thereafter, CUC merged with HFS to form Cendant, and Interval International was sold off in order to avoid a monopoly in the exchange business.
Christel DeHaan still owns the building at Woodview Trace.
According to McAdams, at least 30 employees will be added to the Vacation Plaza operation, where a call center
is located to give timeshare owners information on various topics relevant to exchanging their timeshare for another
in a different location.