The Timeshare Beat: Jerry Sikes; With Regard to Participation

“The notion of looking on at life has always been hateful to me.

What am I if I am not a participant?”

- Saint-Exupery -

Yesterday was Super Sunday, the day of the game - Super Bowl XXXVII. Participation took on several different meanings. Not only the coaches and players on the Qualcomm Stadium field participated hands but also those who were parts of the pre-game and half-time entertainment. There were those who could afford to go to San Diego and see the game and those in Oakland who were determined to riot whether the Raiders won or lost.

Then there were the millions world wide who watched via TV, and not all were couch-potatoes. Over 150 thousand logged on and voted for their favorite commercial. Unlike the game, there was no clear-cut winner. Many favored the Budweiser one that depicted football-playing horses standing around while a zebra reviewed a play. If you missed it - a fence-setting cowboy says: “The referee's a jackass!” “Nope,” his pal says, “I believe that’s a zebra.” Others preferred the Pepsi Twist one with Ozzy Osbourne discovering his kids were Donny and Marie Osmond and his wife was Florence Henderson. The look on Ozzy’s face when the switches occurred was worth the ticket.

More spectators were on the course for the final round of the PGA’s Phoenix Open than voted on which Super Bowl commercial was the best. Vijay Singh of Fiji was the winner and took home $720,000 in prize money. A total of 72 players participated in the final round and the last place finisher (at 9 over) was the only player not to break par. Phil Mickelson ((Lefty) took participation to the limit on this day. He finished in a tie for 9th at 267 collected his $112,000 in prize money, jumped in his car for the short drive over to Scottsdale Airport where his private jet was already warming up and was in his seat at Oualcomm for XXXVII prior to kick off.

Prior to the start of both these major sport events, Mrs. Gerry took me on a shopping excursion to Kierland Commons, one of our city's newest meccas for that event. As we were looking for a parking place I noticed that Westin had opened one of its Vacation Stores. While Gerry was checking out one of the stores I went into the Westin off-site facility where I approached the receptionist. I presented my business card and asked to see the Sales Manager. The receptionist scrutinized my card then picked up her phone and called the sales manager. Once the receptionist made contact she expressed her regrets for the interruption. However, some man at the reception desk was asking to see her. Then began a three-way inquisition from the sales manager through the receptionist to myself as to why I was there and what I wanted with the sales manager. I never did get to my real intent which was to ask the sales manager if she wanted to provide a poster board and some brochures for our display so that Westin had a presence along with the likes of Marriott’s new Desert Ridge at this weeks third annual ARDA-Arizona Legislative Breakfast down at the Capital. You see, rather than taking up more of their valuable time I recovered my business card, apologized for my intrusion, terminated my participation in the conservation and went back to join Gerry’s shopping excursion.

Speaking of the ARDA Legislative Breakfast we are looking forward to reestablishing contact with several members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. We had received participation from several of them over the last two years as we worked on the passage of a new Arizona Timeshare Act and new legislation regarding timeshare resort property evaluations and commercial classification. Representative Barbara Leff had served as Chairman of both the Commerce and Economic Development committees the last 2 years and has been a great friend to the industry. She was elected to the Senate this year and has now assumed Chairmanship of the Senate’s Commerce committee. While we have no current plans to present new legislation in this session we must continue to have a presence and participate in government affairs. It will be somewhat interesting to see who, among the major industry players in Arizona, actually shows up at 6:30 am to represent not only their firms and properties, but also ARDA and the Timeshare Industry.

Final Thought

Sometimes I think that we as an industry have outgrown the idea of participation, that we feel no obligation to give service or to serve. Has the concept become passé? I don’t know!

More years ago than I can remember we converted the Holiday Inn at St. Augustine Beach into a timeshare resort that was named St. Augustine Beach and Tennis Club. We had opened a Tourist Information location just across the Bridge of Lions that in reality was an OPC location. One day a young man stopped by and checked out what was going on. He appeared to be in his late 20s and was on a cross-country bike trip. Our operative disqualified him, however as he made his way down the coast he stopped at our location and entered the sales center and approached the receptionist to ask if he could look around. She discouraged him because he was obviously well below the qualification level that had been established, however he persisted. He walked around the lobby, went out by the pool and walked down to the beach then came back to the sales center and spent some time looking at the wall storyboards. He again approached the desk and asked if someone could tell him about the property and the concept. The sales reps were aware of this guy wandering around the place in his bike shorts and all were determined that they would not waste their time on this mooch. Finally one of the new reps was told to go out there and get rid of him. Within the next 22 minutes the cross-country biker and the new rep had settled on a deal for 12 weeks and our bank had confirmed receipt of a wire transfer of $102,000 and the biker was on his way down US-1 toward Daytona Beach.

I am sure that the Westin Vacation Store at Kierland Commons and its staff (including the sales manager and receptionist) have been well trained on the visual reading of those who enter the facility so that they could determine those who are worthy of participation in their various timeshare or vacation ownership plans and those who are not worth the trouble of even the smallest bit of service. I’m quite sure that their participation in the ARDA-Arizona Legislative Breakfast has also been judged unworthy, however one never knows when a legislator with money will decide to take their $4,000 Mercedes bike out of the garage and take a ride out near Scottsdale Road and Kierland Blvd.