Exclusive Resorts: Steve Case discusses new development at ER

Exclusive Resorts is a Destination Club, a collection of homes that are operated somewhat like a country club — members pay a fee to join and annual dues to use the club property. Currently, 30 days of annual use requires a buy-in of $310,000 (over $10,000/night; over $70,000/week) and annual dues of $29,850 (almost $1,000/night).

Destination Clubs in general have either failed due to the economic slump of 2007/2008/2009 or have been forced to reevaluate their business model and adjust annual dues higher in an attempt to break-even on operational costs of providing services to club members. Previously, profits from new member sales at many clubs were subsidizing operating costs; when new membership sales slowed down (or stopped), cash flow problems began to arise at many of the destination clubs.

Exclusive Resorts remains the leader in the industry and appears to be well managed, but apparently was not immune to the economic slump.

Sherpa Report’s article, summarizing a recent CNBC interview of Steve Case: http://www.sherpareport.com/destination-clubs/steve-exclusive-resorts.html

The attraction of a destination club is the availability of many properties to use for vacation use. In a similar fashion, FractionalExchange.com works to put owners of vacation properties in contact with one another so that the keys to one vacation home may open doors to thousands of other vacation homes.