ARDA Launches Vacation Ownership Sentiment Index to Better Track & Understand U.S. Travel Behaviors
In an effort to better track and understand the behavior of leisure travelers in the United States, the American Resort Development Association (ARDA) today launched the Vacation Ownership Sentiment Index.
The index, which provides ongoing data and insights into travel preferences and attitudes of timeshare owners versus the average leisure traveler, will serve as a helpful tool for measuring the health of the leisure travel space.
"Domestic travel and tourism create economic growth, which is vital to our nation, states and local communities," said Jason Gamel, president and CEO of ARDA. "Having a tool that gives industry stakeholders information on how leisure travelers think about, plan and take vacations will better equip them to anticipate future consumer behaviors and trends for this important economic sector."
Initial takeaways from the index since its launch in February 2023 are as follows:
- The overall sentiment of timeshare owners remained high, indicating positive industry sentiment from owners.
- Timeshare owners continue to maintain more positive attitudes and behaviors about leisure travel than the parallel sample of overall U.S. travelers.
- Timeshare owners remain more active travelers, derive greater enjoyment from their vacations and have significantly higher expectations for future travel service quality.
- For the fifth straight month this year, over 75% of timeshare owners strongly felt that their most recent vacation was significantly better than the typical vacation.
"The most significant insight from the index so far is that timeshare owners generally express more positive attitudes and behaviors," said Gamel. "We know that's because today's timeshare products allow for flexibility in where owners go, for how long, and even provide the ability to take a cruise or embark on a different travel experience altogether. Additionally, timeshare by its very nature is built for times of uncertainty and high levels of inflation, meaning owners can continue to enjoy their vacations without concern for market pricing and other macroeconomic fluctuations."
The index also showed that timeshare owners are likely to spend more time and money on vacation within the next six months when compared to non-owners. Specifically, October's index, found that there was a 45% greater likelihood that timeshare owners would spend more time on vacation over the next six months and a 36% greater likelihood that they would spend more money locally than non-owners.
"Because owners have essentially pre-paid for vacations, they're likely to take advantage of this by scheduling more vacations and/or spending more time on vacation," said Gamel. "They're also likely to spend more money during their vacation outside the resort, which means they create a positive impact in those local communities and businesses surrounding them."
Future indexes will be released monthly and will be posted to the ARDA International Foundation research library, which can be accessed by clicking here.
To view the October 2023 Vacation Ownership Sentiment Index, as well as the study methodology of the index, click here.
About ARDA
Based in Washington, D.C., ARDA is the trade association for the timeshare industry. ARDA's membership comprises over 500 companies (both privately held firms and publicly traded corporations), which house 5,000-plus individual ARDA members. ARDA's active, engaged members have extensive experience in shared ownership interests in leisure real estate. To learn more, visit arda.org.
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