ARDA Receives Timeshare Consumer Research Results - Data includes owner satisfaction rates and demographics as well as non-owner opinions of the industry

According to the survey, timeshare owners continue to express a remarkably high level of satisfaction with the product. Nearly 85 percent of respondents called themselves either "somewhat" or "very satisfied"—a number mirroring the one figured for 1999's State of the U.S. Industry report.

The study also finds that owners very rarely allow their intervals to go unused. Between exchange, home resort vacations and being lent to friends and family, more than 93 percent of timeshare weeks were used in 2000.

"I'm not surprised to find out that weeks don't go unused," said Howard Nusbaum, president and CEO of ARDA. "People who experience the product love it, and they want the discipline of taking a vacation timeshare creates. They want to have that great vacation experience. They don't want it to go to waste."

Some of the study's numbers reinforce the immediate need for one of ARDA's major upcoming initiatives: consumer education. While 87 percent of non-owners polled had heard of timeshare, only 27 percent had a positive opinion of the product—leaving 73 percent either neutral on or negative toward the subject.

"Twenty seven percent is step in the right direction," said Nusbaum. "But the numbers show what we know: people who buy love timeshare, and people who don't haven't learned about it or don't understand it. We must work educate consumers, and make them aware of how positive and satisfying owning a timeshare is."

The full 2002 State of the Industry study, being conducted by Eugene, Oregon-based Ragatz Associates, is the broadest research effort carried out by the association since its 1997 iteration of the report. The 2000 consumer statistics just received will be updated with 2001 numbers before the ARDA Leadership Summit in November and will be combined with economic data to be released in early fall. The complete results will be published as ARDA's State of the U.S. Timeshare Industry Report 2002 in the fourth quarter of this year.