Dubai gets its first five-star managed timeshare resort

IFA Hotels and Resorts, a subsidiary of Kuwait's International Financial Advisors Kuwait (IFA), has affiliated with Resort Condominiums International (RCI) for the membership inventory management of its five-star, 460 all-suite Vacation Club on The Palm, Jum-eirah.

RCI has entered the Dubai market by signing up Palm Vacation Club to join its worldwide network of 3,700 affiliated resorts.

IFA Hotels and Resorts' mixed-use project on The Palm, Jumeirah includes a 300-room, five-star hotel and 460 Palm Vacation Club suites connected to the Souq Palm, a waterfront Arabian shopping complex with 200 luxury freehold residences/townhouses above and 248 luxury residences of two, three, four and five bedrooms, with a private beach club.

Wahid Attalla, director of operations, Nakheel, the developer of The Palm, said "Together with IFA we are proud to introduce to Dubai the first, five-star managed timeshare resort, which is also fully integrated into a luxury hotel."

IFA Hotels and Resorts will also market and sell a canal-side shopping centre connected to a luxury resort. It has also launched the freehold and fractional sale of 448 luxury apartments with services provided by a five-star hotelier. "RCI is the global leader in vacation property exchange and with RCI recently opening a sales and call centre in Dubai Internet City, we are in a strong position and are now in the build-up phase for the launch of the Palm Vacation Club," said James Wilson, president and chief operating officer, IFA Hotels & Resorts.

"This affiliation means that our Vacation Club owners will now have access to a membership exchange programme which already boasts three million member families and spans 3,700 affiliated resorts in more than 100 countries around the world."

According to Ragatz Associates, the international consulting and market research firm for the resort industry, global timeshare sales have enjoyed consistent double-digit growth for years, reaching $9.4 billion in 2002. A recent Ragatz Associates' study on timeshares, ownerships of timeshares increased at a rate averaging about 12 per cent annually from 1990 to 2003 and in the challenging economic climate of 2002, grew in excess of 8 per cent.

Some 6.7 million households own the rights to 10.7 million timeshare weeks.