Skift Travel News Blog

Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corp‘s new CEO John Geller said on Thursday that the company’s fourth-quarter earnings underscored continued strength in leisure demand for its timeshare properties, package tours, and other offerings for travelers, despite talk of economic uncertainty.

In the fourth quarter, the company generated a net income of $88 million off of $1.19 billion in revenue. Revenue rose 8 percent year-over-year, thanks partly to the company’s lodging averaging nearly 90 percent occupancy.

The company said consolidated vacation ownership contract sales — a key metric in the sector — was $454 million in the quarter, up from $406 million a year earlier. Executives forecasted that the company would end 2023 with contract sales up between 5 percent and 9 percent.

Thursday was the first earnings call for John Geller as the company’s CEO, president and director.

“The past two months have felt a lot like when I joined the company just over 13 years ago, full of potential and possibility. Long term, I expect our timeshare and exchange business to remain the core of our business model while we look to add to our growth by diversifying into adjacent leisure-focused businesses where we can leverage our core capabilities. And finally, I want us to find new ways to unlock the power of data through advanced analytics to improve efficiency and drive top-line growth.”

—John Geller, CEO of Marriott Vacations

Marriott Vacations Worldwide’s international active members rose 21 percent year-over-year to 1.6 million.

But average revenue per member — another key performance metric — fell by 17 percent year-over-year.

In January, the company said that beginning this summer, it would rebrand all of its recently acquired Hyatt legacy Welk resorts as Hyatt Vacation Club.

Later this year, it plans to expand the vacation experiences available to Hyatt owners with a new exchange option called Beyond, allowing them to use their ownership for cruises, tours and hotel stays.

Earlier this month, the company acquired a parcel of land in Charleston, South Carolina, where it plans to develop a 50-unit Marriott branded resort, including a new on-site sales gallery by 2025.

Owner satisfaction surveys and demographic trends are favorable for timeshares in the U.S., according to a new report Wednesday from the industry lobby, the American Resort Development Association (ARDA), via its foundation.

The pandemic boosted the popularity of timeshare. A survey found that 84 percent of owners would purchase a timeshare product again, a significant increase from 77 percent in 2020.

Gen Z and Millennials now account for 57 percent of U.S. timeshare owners, more than half of new sale purchasers, and nearly two-thirds of resale purchasers. 

The online survey of 1,600 timeshare owners ran from March 13 to 31, 2022. A total of 1,600 timeshare owners in North America.

Vacation ownership is having a boom time this year as the travel sector broadly recovers from the pandemic.

Hilton Grand Vacations said Tuesday that its contract sales in the second quarter were $617 million, or 5 percent above 2019 contract sales. It produced a net income (a measure of profit) of $73 million on $948 million in revenue.

Hilton Grand Vacation has also been adding back employees after the pandemic crisis, having added 3,890 employees over two years to reach about 14,000.

Meanwhile, Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corp. said Monday that it had produced a quarterly net income of $136 million on revenue of $1.16 billion.

Some analysts have been making a case that timeshare companies would be able to handle a potential recession in the U.S. without much trouble.

Deutsche Bank’s Chris Woronka and research analyst colleagues recently wrote a report making this case:

“To be clear, Marriott Vacations’ business is well within the wheelhouse of being discretionary in nature and the core sales function can also rightfully be described as being a “big ticket” purchase, especially for first time buyers. But VAC also noted that roughly 40 percent of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amoritization is largely recurring in nature and isn’t directly correlated with contract sales. …. Management also noted that its customers have an average (self-reported) net worth of $1.5 million; 54 percent of Interval owners have annual income in excess of $100,000 compared to an industry average of 29 percent.”

—Deutsche Bank Securities

Marriott Vacations Worldwide said on Thursday that CEO Stephen Weisz will retire at year-end and that current president, John E. Geller, Jr., will assume the role of president and CEO on January 1, 2023.

Weisz served in the role of CEO since the company spun out in 2011. He notably led the 2018 acquisition of ILG and the rollout of a guest loyalty program.

Geller has been president since 2021 and was previously the company’s chief financial officer. He also helped lead the spin-off of the company from Marriott International in 2011 and played a key role in the acquisition of ILG.