ARDA – Streamlined and Ready for Business

After-shocks from the COVID pandemic prompted a reassessment and realignment for most businesses. Our trade association, ARDA, is no different. The evidence was seen in almost every aspect of the 2021 Fall Conference held in early November. Attendance was drastically reduced as compared to former years. Certainly, businesses operating in this sector are much fewer as consolidation of resorts and economic stressors reduce opportunities to thrive in this market at the current time. The reduced audience was no doubt also due, in part, to the reduced number of committee meetings and events.

Toned-down, but not tone-deaf

ARDA’s key objectives have been laid out clearly in the past: The primary focus of the organization is advocacy – both for ARDA developer members and for individual timeshare owners represented by ARDA-ROC (ARDA’s Resort Owners Coalition). ARDA President Jason Gamel has assured us that ARDA’s financials are strong and the association’s volunteer leadership focused. We learned last spring that the ARDA Resort Owners Coalition (ARDA-ROC) consisted of 1.6 million timeshare owners whose interests were being addressed in 14 states. The ARDA International Foundation (AIF) continues to perform highly valued research.

Last year Orange Lake Resorts/HICV President & CEO Tom Nelson discussed how ARDA would be taking the lead in positive messaging. “We’ve allowed small voices to represent the industry,” he said. Since then, ARDA has launched an extremely promising initiative — #LoveMyTimeshare – which encourages satisfied owners to speak to why the industry has an 80-plus percent satisfaction rate.

So don’t let a reduced showing fool you. Our industry continues to improvise and pivot. It has always been peopled by the most inventive and creative entrepreneurial minds in the country. And, under Gamel’s direction along with an exceptional team, ARDA continues to evolve and align right along with its membership.

Back to Normal, First or Last?

During the ARDA Fall Conference, keynote speaker Jon Last, founder, and president of Sports and Leisure Research Group and lead researcher on the “Back to Normal Barometer” which tracks consumer opinion. Last’s company is a full-service marketing research consultancy that supports leading brands in sports marketing, travel, media, and leisure categories as well as a host of golf, travel, and consumer product company clients.

He discussed our current situation through a series of charts, was expressed in his November 3, 2021, article entitled, “Golf, Inc. 2021 Palm Springs – What’s the Word?”, found online at sportsandleisureresearch.com/the-last-word: “According to SLRG, as of October 15, 2021, 69% of us are either working from home or splitting time between home and workplace. Only 31% regularly go to their designated workplace. This should serve golf well, as long as it lasts. That said, inflation is an obstacle to travel and the purchase of consumer items and could most definitely impact golf habits. SLRG studies show that nearly 2/3 of respondents perceive inflation as much greater now than in 2019, before the pandemic. Golfers are showing resiliency with more than a third (38%) predicting that people will return to spending freely on luxuries in 2021 and 52% expressing that they are better off now than 4 years ago.” While he was specifically addressing the golfing industry, his message was echoed to the resort industry attendees the following day.

Radical Curiosity, or the Value of Inquisitiveness

Seth Goldenberg, the founder of Curiosity & Company, immediately engaged his listeners to consider how a question-based leadership practice such as used at Apple Stores and the Oprah Winfrey Network could help reimagine our industry. Author of the book, Radical Curiosity: Questioning Commonly Held Beliefs to Imagine Better Futures, Goldenberg is an entrepreneur and thought leader working at the intersection of design, business, and culture.

Goldenberg explains, “Radical curiosity is a practice of questioning commonly held beliefs to imagine flourishing futures. What that means to me is that we have to question the very root of things—not just, as you suggest, a childish or youthful curiosity, where there’s a kind of unintentional wandering and, oh, what does this do? A sensory kind of curiosity. This is a much more intentional, advanced practice, in which we have to question now more than ever a set of assumptions around the human condition. What is health? What is happiness? What is a relationship? What is gender? All these core ideas that were maybe commonly held wisdom for the past several centuries are experiencing such significant flux that radical curiosity is a kind of inquiry and investigation to look at the roots and the histories of these concepts, understand how contemporary society is evolving, and update our common wisdom in order to imagine a very different future.”

“As the founder and CEO of Epic Decade, a design studio propelling cultural change, Seth has worked with more than 50 of the Fortune 500 companies, leading non-profit organizations, and regional governments such as Apple, American Express, Boston University, and the State of Rhode Island to envision future business models and rethink our social systems. The studio is highly regarded for its IDEAS Salons, custom-designed exclusive retreats, and conferences that invite leaders to ask the most essential questions of our time. Their salon leadership community includes more than 3,000 Nobel Prize winners, senators, and executives from organizations like Apple, Google, Disney, Oprah Winfrey Network, Pfizer, Harvard University, Kaiser Permanente, the Department of Defense, and more.”

It would appear that the current state of affairs in our industry is prime for IDEA salons, as well. ARDA is an apt leader in this respect when you consider the #LoveMyTimeshare campaign. Bumper stickers, anyone?

Sharon Scott Wilson, RRP, is Publisher of Resort Trades, Resort Trades Weekly, and produces a weekly webinar series –the Trades Lunch Bunch. Subscribe to Resort Trades Weekly, https://resorttrades.com/emagazine/ and to our channel “Resort Trades” on YouTube.