Monday 7^th July saw the eagerly awaited London launch of ‘Fractional Summit’ http://www.fractionalsummit.com , the first fractional ownership property conference focusing predominantly on the emerging United Kingdom and European marketplaces.

Held at the prestigious Andaz Hotel in the heart of the City of London and organised by Fractional Life http://www.fractionallife.com with sponsorship by Registry Collection http://www.theregistrycollection.com , Citadel Trustees Ltd http://www.citadeltrustees.com and DCP International http://www.dcp-international.com the event attracted over 120 fractional property and service operators from all over the world together with leading property journalists.

The delegate and speaker list read like a who’s who within the fractional industry and Piers Brown, Founder of Fractional Life chaired the day, following a champagne networking reception the evening before.

While delegates were taking their seats, video footage of the Fractional Life Expo 2008 was shown and Piers welcomed everybody to “what promised to be both an educational and informative day”. He reminded delegates of the positive media coverage the fractional industry is currently receiving in these turbulent times and how he felt “an active presence in the fractional property marketplace right now is essential” and that consumer purchasing habits are changing.

He introduced his first speaker by sharing the fact that the US fractional marketplace continues to grow and in 2007 was up 8.3% on the previous year, worth a total of over $2.3 billion -

David Disick, President of David M Disick and Associates covered the Fractionals 101 session explaining the similarities and key differences between fractional, destination club and private residence club business models. He also enlightened the audience with some background on how he helped establish the whole PRC marketplace with the successful launch of the Franz Klammer lodge in the US in 1994.

Peter Kempf, CEO, Managing Director Europe, DCP International enthralled the audience with his knowledge of the US marketplace and the successes he’s had in the Europe with sales and marketing Palazzo Tornabuoni and Club Borgo di Vagli fractional.

He also told delegates to expect ‘phenomenol’ growth in Europe over the next few years at a pace to exceed the growth experienced in the US, and explained his reasoning behind this.

Brett Archibald, Senior Vice President, Business Development, The Registry Collection presented the benefits of a luxury exchange network and some informative statistics on how fractional ownership has grown worldwide over the last few years, with a particular focus on fractional ownership within South Africa where timeshare doesn’t suffer from the stigma it has experienced in Europe.

The panel discussion, hosted by John Roderick, President, The Guild Collection took the format of ‘ Fractionals – A Winning Formula for Developers and Investors?’ Andrew Berry, Senior Consultant, the Pepper Corporation re-emphasised the key differences between the various fractional models and the difficulties experienced with how people interpret various fractional property definitions. Simeon Singer, Managing Director, The Hideaways Club gave delegates an insight into the Destination Club marketplace in Europe and how well the Club has faired since launch.

Nick Turner, Vice President, Business Development, The Registry Collection commented on the fractional boom currently being experienced in the Middle East and gave his views on the future potential fractional property hot-spots within Europe. Trevor Little, Editor of Overseas Property Professional Magazine then gave an overview of the current state of the overseas property industry, and how the fractional ownership marketplace is becoming more popular with developers looking to attract buyers at a much lower entry price point.

James Evans, Managing Director of Classic Car Club gave an interesting talk about how his company launched the fractional car club concept in London back in 1995, showing some jaw dropping images of the cars his members drive whilst explaining how the company has grown together with the challenges and successes experienced in that time. James explained to delegates how the hassles of private car ownership and ‘experience’ are some of the crucial motivating factors for members who join the fractional Classic Car Club.

After a break for some networking at lunch, Paul Smythe, Managing Director and Veranne Wilkinson, Legal Services Director  of Citadel Trustees Limited talked about the benefits of a trust structure and why the Buy to Let Hotel Room concept is becoming popular with investors.

Chris Evans, Creative Director, Creative Action was next to talk about the importance of branding in the fractional marketplace and the need for innovation and consistency within the consumer message.

Next Eric Gummers, Partner at Howard Kennedy made an upbeat presentation complete with visual cartoons on how in his view the fractional legal paperwork needs to be written fairly and approached from the consumers point of view.

The final presentation was made by Brad Lincoln, CEO, The Best Group who gave an overview of the benefits of forming a fractional trade association as the marketplace grows, and encouraged delegates to consider membership of the Fractional and Shared Ownership Trade Association, http://www.fsota.org

Piers Brown rounded off the day, thanking everybody for their contribution before inviting delegates to join him in the champagne bar!

ENDS

Notes To Editors

Fractional Life is the number one consumer lifestyle brand dedicated to growing the

fractional ownership marketplace. The company has 3 divisions: interactive, fractional conferences and exhibitions, and publishing.

Group RCI , part of the Wyndham Worldwide family of companies, (NYSE: WYN) is the global leader in non-hotel leisure accommodations with exclusive access for specified periods to more than 67,000 vacation properties in nearly 100 countries. Organisationally, Group RCI is comprised of vacation exchange, including RCI®, the worldwide leader in timeshare and vacation exchange and provider of travel services to businesses and consumers and The Registry Collection, the world’s largest luxury exchange program; vacation rentals, including Endless Vacation RentalsSM , Landal Greenparks®, Novasol®, and more than 30 other vacation rental brands, through which vacationers can rent a wide variety of property types, from city apartments to country cottages to unique villas; and NorthCourse®, Leisure Real Estate Solutions, an international leader in providing a full spectrum of advisory, research, asset management and turnkey solutions and services. Collectively, the company delivers vacation experiences to leisure travelers around the world and provides products and services to business customers that support the growth of the leisure real estate industry. Wyndham Worldwide Corporation is one of the world’s largest hospitality companies with leading brands in lodging franchising, vacation ownership, vacation rentals and vacation exchange. For additional information visit http://www.grouprci.com or the media centre of http://www.wyndhamworldwide.com

Citadel Trustees provides specialised trustee services in a variety of areas such as stakeholder activities, conveyancing services, shared ownership, private residence clubs and probate administration.

DCP International provides resort and urban real estate developers and land owners with very specialised expertise in the design marketing and sales of Equity Residence Club memberships. 

For more information please visit:

http://www.fractionalsummit.com

http://www.fractionallife.com

http://www.theregistrycollection.com  

http://www.citadeltrustees.com

http://www.dcp-international.com

Issued 11th July 2008

Press release issued by Douglas Brown, Douglas Brown Associates, Tel: +44 (0)121 308 4092.