TIMESHARE

The inception timeshare in Europe

The first timeshare operation dates back to 1963 when Switzerland first introduced the timeshare model. The success of the operation quickly caught the eye's of the US and the rest of Europe quickly adopted the timeshare business model in 1975. In the 1980's timeshare then exploded in Europe with Spain and it's Islands firmly taking the number 1 spot within the European timeshare industry.

Following the successful adoption & roll out of the timeshare model resorts and developers alike invested millions in building new resorts, the resorts were mainly located in Southern Spain and the Canary Islands. This mass expansion and investment meant only one thing for the industry, this was aggressive sales which were came from the US in which to fill all of the inventory.

By the mid 1980's sales were going through the roof and the entire European timeshare industry was propelling itself into another stratosphere at a rate of rise that a rocket bound for space could not keep up with. Due to the rate that timeshare was expanding and the way it was being sold it was not long until accusations of mis-selling were becoming rife within the industry which then came under the watchful eye of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

The timeshare industry was now awash with claims of mis-selling, mis-representation and down right foul play, which in turn forced through the Timeshare Act 1992. Unfortunately this act did very little to assist the consumer and neither resorts nor developers were policed in any way.

The industry was still booming but flooded beyond total belief with malpractice and fraud. A new and more stricter law was introduced into Europe in 1994 and adopted by Spain in 1998 namely; 42/1998. This law gave consumers a mandatory cooling of period of 14days (Spain actually has a Right of Withdrawal of 90days which many are unaware of) and it was iterated that deposits within the cooling off period were not permitted to be taken.

Unfortunately the resorts continued to operate in the ways that they had become custom to, quite simply because it worked for them and they made money that way, a LOT of money. 

In 2016 the first successful claim against a timeshare resort was awarded in favour of a Norwegian consumer against Europe's largest independent resort Anfi. Following this landmark ruling the floodgates opened, filling the Spanish courts with irrefutable claims against both the resorts and developers who had set up shop there.

The European timeshare industry which was once a major player within the holiday sector has now imploded. Sales operations have ceased, resorts have filed for both bankruptcy & insolvency and mainly in a last gasp attempt to hold onto as much of their ill-gotten gains as possible and renege on paying out on the thousands of consumer claims awarded against them.

But where did it all begin? 

Here is a little history lesson for y'all 

Let us digress back to the mid 1940's and start with a few names totally unrelated to the timeshare industry that the majority of us are more than familiar with. 

In 1946 a trio of big hitters in the vacation industry underwent mass expansions to their current holiday camps, the trio we are referring to are namely; the Warner Brothers, Billy Butlin and Fred Pontin.

Their perception and vision was that the holiday industry would grow at a rapidly increasing rate and those three entrepreneurs were 100% correct.

As international flights became more financially accessible to the then modern day working man, the successful holiday camp operations by the aforementioned entrepreneurs became the working blueprint for the modern package holiday industry.