Give ’Em Something to Talk About: Building Owner Relations Through Value Worth Sharing

Owners don’t disengage because you picked the wrong communication channel. They disengage because they stopped seeing the value in what they own. They stop understanding what the bills they pay actually get them and start feeling resentment for the debit rather than excitement for the experiences that payment will unlock.

The hospitality industry has spent years expanding communication options – email sequences, text notifications, AI chatbots, mobile apps, curated social feeds, online communities and so on. The assumption behind all of it is that if we just reach owners in the right way, at the right time, through the right platform, they’ll remember us. They’ll trust us. They’ll stay connected.

I hear it constantly from clients. They have ads running, social posting regularly, an online community on their website or Facebook group, a newsletter going out on schedule. They want to know where else they need to be. Why aren’t these channels meeting their objectives?

The answer usually isn’t another channel. It’s not a better social media manager. Owners aren’t asking for more places to hear from you. They’re asking for more reasons to care about what they already bought.

In customer relations – if you don’t have something valuable to say, don’t say anything at all. You only have things of value to communicate if you’re actively working in the background on things that increase that value. Communication is hinged on doing the work to have newsworthy announcements. Communicating for the sake of it is spinning a hamster wheel that goes nowhere.

Confusion kills utilization. Under-utilized ownership feels like a burden, not a benefit. And owners who feel burdened don’t stay engaged – they start looking for exits.

According to ARDA’s 2024 US Owners Report, when owners were asked to select the single most important reason they purchased their timeshare, overall flexibility topped the list Not quality of accommodations. Not location. Flexibility – the ability to actually use what they purchased in ways that fit their lives.

The properties building the strongest owner relationships aren’t doing it by adding more communication touchpoints. They’re doing it by expanding how owners can use their ownership – exchange flexibility, rental income, responsible exit pathways, management-supported programs that handle complexity so owners don’t have to.

Where Value Gets Lost – and Found

Owner relationships operate in a cycle – Understanding, Utilization and Sharing.

Understanding is where it starts. Owners need to know their options exist and grasp how those options actually work. This sounds obvious but it’s where most value disappears. Owners who don’t understand exchange programs don’t use them. Owners who don’t know rental platforms exist can’t monetize unused weeks. Owners who’ve never heard of legitimate exit programs fall prey to scam companies promising impossible outcomes. Operators live and breathe this stuff. Owners don’t. Making it digestible is our job.

Utilization is where understanding becomes action. An owner who knows they can exchange their week for thousands of resorts worldwide but has never actually booked one isn’t getting value from that knowledge. Information alone doesn’t create value – acting on it does. Awareness isn’t action. Owners need the path laid out – clear steps, clear expectations, clear payoff.

Sharing is the multiplier. When owners use their options and experience real value, they talk. They tell friends who vacation the same week. They recommend the property to family. They post in owner Facebook groups. They become advocates instead of critics. This is engagement earned, not engineered.

The properties completing this cycle – moving owners from understanding to utilization to sharing – build something more durable than brand loyalty. They build communities where value compounds.

Exchange Done Right

Your owners probably already know exchange exists. The question isn’t whether they’ve heard of platforms like RCI and Interval International – it’s whether they’ve actually used it.

Exchange programs only create value when owners understand how to access them. And for many properties, the bandwidth to properly educate, onboard and support owners through exchange enrollment simply doesn’t exist internally. Owner services teams are focused on core responsibilities. Adding exchange education on top of that stretches resources thin.

When Blue Tree Resort wanted to offer an RCI membership discount as an incentive for timely maintenance fee payment, they didn’t try to handle the entire owner journey themselves. RCI managed the communications – writing and designing materials that explained the offer clearly. When owners had questions about enrollment, booking or how exchange actually works, they contacted RCI directly. The resort’s owner services team stayed focused on their core work while RCI handled everything needed to bring the special to life.

The result was owners who didn’t just sign up for exchange – they understood it well enough to actually use it. That’s the difference between offering a benefit and delivering one.

For properties without dedicated exchange support resources, partnering with companies that can serve as an extension of your owner relations team isn’t outsourcing. It’s expanding what you can realistically deliver.
Exchange isn’t the only underused lever. For many owners, unused time represents something else entirely: lost income.

The Income Option Owners Don’t Know They Have

Resort operators understand that units only generate value when there’s a head in the bed. The same principle applies to individual owners – unused inventory is wasted inventory.

Timeshare owners have the same monetization opportunity Airbnb unlocked for homeowners, but traditional vacation rental platforms weren’t built for how timeshare inventory works. Points systems, check-in windows, resort verification and usage rules create friction that standard platforms can’t easily accommodate. For an owner to handle all of that complexity for a single week, the hurdle doesn’t match the reward.

Platforms like KOALA – which The Wall Street Journal called “the Airbnb for timeshare” – built infrastructure specifically for this. Owners generate income from unused time, renters access quality resort accommodations and properties benefit from occupied inventory and potential new buyers entering the ecosystem.

According to Mike Kennedy, CEO + Cofounder, of KOALA, “Renting an underutilized timeshare is conceptually simple but needlessly complex in practice, leaving many owners unclear about whether they’re even allowed to rent or how to do it. This complexity creates friction that holds back what should be a demand engine that drives utilization, word-of-mouth and new buyer interest. Our mission is to remove that friction.”

This works especially well for last-minute inventory that might otherwise go unused. The point is having options – and making sure owners know those options exist.

When the Best Service Is Taking Something Off Their Plate

Not every resort needs owners to master rental optimization or exchange booking. Sometimes the strongest customer relations strategy is handling complexity for owners so they can enjoy benefits without the burden.

The recent Resort Trades article “Custom Timeshare Management Solutions That Drive Results” profiles Lea Casa, an independent resort on Hawaii’s Big Island. Their on-site team already excelled at daily operations. What they needed was professional rental expertise. Grand Pacific Resorts delivered a tailored vacation services package focused specifically on that gap.

As Lea Casa Board President Marie Bowman put it, “GPR filled the gaps we couldn’t handle in-house, freeing our team’s time while improving financial performance.”

Sometimes the best owner communication isn’t more newsletters. It’s a quarterly update showing what rental revenue accomplished for the property.

The Exit Conversation Nobody Wants – But Everyone Needs

Some owners genuinely need to exit their timeshare. Health changes. Family circumstances shift. Financial situations evolve. For these owners, “more value from ownership” isn’t the answer – a clear, honest exit pathway is.

The good news is the industry is standing up real options. In August 2025, ARDA launched The Timeshare Consumer Protection Center (TCPC) to help owners considering exit get accurate, helpful information free of charge. The platform provides a detailed overview of exit avenues – from reselling, to renting, to simply returning the timeshare to the company it was purchased from – as well as guidance on spotting and avoiding scams.

“Timeshare exit doesn’t have to be expensive, difficult, or time-consuming,” said ARDA President & CEO Jason Gamel. “The TCPC allows owners to get all the facts about timeshare exit without the pressure of sales or the risk of scams.”

For owners – contact your resort or developer directly. For operators – be helpful and have solutions ready when they do. Owners don’t pay thousands to companies promising impossible outcomes when their resort can give them realistic ones. The TCPC isn’t just a resource to share with owners – it’s one operators should know inside and out so they can communicate options confidently when those conversations happen.

According to ARDA, 80% of timeshare owners rated their most recent vacation as an exceptional experience – 40% higher than travelers in general. That satisfaction comes from owners who understand and use their options. Options create perceived value – even options owners hope they’ll never need. Like insurance you’re glad you have even if you never file a claim, knowing there’s a legitimate path forward makes ownership feel less like a trap and more like a choice.

Communicating Value So It Actually Lands

Communication channels don’t matter if no one’s paying attention. Regular touchpoints – in whatever format fits your property – build the audience that’s there when updates actually matter.

For exchanges: Do owners understand how to actually complete a trade – or does the process feel too complicated to attempt?

For rentals: Do owners know they can monetize unused time? Do they know the platforms exist and how to access them?

For exit: Do owners who genuinely need out know where to turn? Are you proactively protecting them from scam companies?

The Understanding → Utilization → Sharing cycle works the same whether you’re a 50-unit independent resort or a group-managed property. The scale differs but the principle doesn’t.

Owners who understand and use their options become advocates. Owners who don’t become risks instead of referrals.

Make the options clear. Make them usable. Value follows – and owner sentiment follows value.

Kelley Ellert is the founder of Waterwheel Marketing, helping hospitality businesses create and distribute content that works. Connect at kelley@waterwheelmarketing.com or on LinkedIn.