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Starwood Vacation takes top advantage of as the brand has to offer.
Starwood's recent acquisition of Vistana, renamed Starwood Vacation Ownership, means integration, growth and development for the division.
Vistana was acquired by Starwood last October for $360 million. Entrepreneurs Raymond "Rip" Gellein and Jeffrey Adler became co-CEOs of the company and have wasted no time in integrating the Starwood brands into their resorts.
The Starwood brand will help the timeshare ownership division's growth and marketing efforts. Already, Starwood has rebranded five new and existing Vistana resorts to Sheraton Vacation Ownership Resorts. The new brands include Starwood's second golf-oriented vacation ownership, Sheraton's PGA Vacation Resort in Port St. Lucie, FL, the first phase of which is under development. Sheraton's Vistana Resort at World Golf Village in St. Augustine, FL, opened in 1998, was also rebranded.
Sheraton's Vistana Resort in Orlando has been rebranded, and Sheraton's Vistana Villages are under development as a large successor property to the flagship for Orlando. Starwood's second vacation ownership resort in Colorado, Sheraton's Mountain Vista in Avon, began construction this summer. The first Westin-branded vacation ownership resort is the Westin St. John in the U.S.Virgin Islands. The vacation ownership division has plans for other Westin- and St. Regis-branded timeshare as well.
"Starwood brought some very key elements to the table," says Gellein. "A number one brand, hotel brands Sheraton, Westin and St. Regis luxury collection are world-recognized. Brand recognition is becoming more and more important to consumer resort locations worldwide. Starwood has an enormous number of discrete visitors to their hotels worldwide that we can access in marketing through their database."
Starwood's travel and leisure partnerships will help the vacation ownership division as well. Partnerships with airline, cruise, rental car and credit card companies allow timeshare to crossmarket to a targeted set of customers.
"These are assets and relationships and brands that companies in our division thirst after and are unavailable except with Starwood's major competitors," says Gellein.
Branding will help Starwood's Vacation Ownership because it brings confidence to the consumer. "Marketing to a consumer with a recognized brand is much more efficient. A branded program means value to the consumer that the non-branded doesn't have,"...