By Dave Simanoff -- Tampa Tribune
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
April 1, 2001
TAMPA, Fla.--Marriott Vacation Club International, the time-share division of Marriott International Inc., will
hire 500 people for a new call center in Tampa.
The Orlando-based company is opening a 66,000-square-foot sales center at netp@rk.tampabay, the office complex
formerly known as Eastlake Square Mall, at 5701 E. Hillsborough Ave.
Hiring begins Sunday with an open house at netp@rk. Marriott Vacation Club plans to begin training workers in May,
and the call center should be ready for business by June 1.
Employees at the Marriott center will call prospective customers, informing them about time share opportunities
offering preview vacation tours.
There are no "cold calls," recruiting manager Imelda Baggs said. The prospective customers are all people
who have already expressed an interest in the time-share program, either through the Marriott Rewards program or
at Marriott information centers and marketing events.
"We're an outbound sales center," Baggs said. "That's a little different than a majority of the
centers here in Tampa."
Full-time workers can earn, on average, $33,000 to $39,000 a year, with part-time workers making $22,000 to $25,000
a year, on average, Baggs said.
Marriott Vacation Club has three other call centers in Orlando, Chicago and Newport Beach, Calif.
The new Marriott center opens as several other call centers in the Tampa Bay area are cutting jobs or shutting
their doors.
Telecommunications company SBC announced earlier this month that it's closing its 400-employee call center in Hidden
River Corporate Park. WorldCom recently closed its Pinellas Park call center, laying off 499 people. In February,
catalog retailer Fingerhut said it would close two Tampa call centers and lay off 950 workers.
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(c) 2001, Tampa Tribune, Fla. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.