Topic: Using The Internet To Advertise A Timeshare.

Author: Alan D. Winter, December 1997.

Who would buy timeshare off the Internet? Is is practical?
Is the internet practical for advertising timeshare for sale?

There are many places where for sale notices can be posted within the Web, but first the buyers need to be motivated sufficiently enough to want to visit a site within the internet, before they can find the location and week that they feel they might like to purchase. The Internet sites need to be sufficiently well organised to facilitate searching for weeks that might satisfy buyer demand.

Evidence gathered in other parts of this study suggests strongly that people who buy timeshare from the second-hand market are likely to be those who already own timeshare and want to expand the number of weeks they own. Greater awareness of the lower prices available on the second-hand market is one notable motivation for turning to this market. As timeshare owners exchange to other resorts they become exposed to alternative standards of holiday accommodation. Deliberately seeking timeshare being sold throughout the Web, could be classified as that part of the buyer decision process which is searching for solutions to a recognised need for more timeshare. Adapted from Engel, Blackwell, Miiniard (1993, p53):

the need to own more timeshare is recognised,
a search of alternative weeks and locations is made, which could include Internet search for those with access,
a purchase might follow.

For anyone else, the process of finding a timeshare for sale via the Internet is much more unlikely. Referencing Engel, Blackwell, Miniard, (1993, p53 Figure 2.7. A Complete Model of Consumer Behaviour Showing Purchase and Its Outcomes), first a need has to be recognised to own timeshare. Alternative uses for large sums of money and for holidays might include, taking a package holiday, visiting a theme park, buying a new car, or paying back part of a mortgage. How the choice is made to purchase a timeshare for the first time could be the subject of any number of subsequent studies.

Secondly, alternative timeshare resorts could be evaluated, which might result in a first-time purchase. Here, again, is another area for subsequent studies in timeshare. Factors, too many to mention here, then feed into the consumer behaviour model. Perhaps, above all else, what Engel et al term "Stimuli: Marketer Dominated" activity plays an important role in (1) exposing the product, (2) drawing attention to it, (3) helping the first-timer to understand the concept, (4) accepting the concept idea (5) forming an impression upon the subjects which helps them to retain the knowledge in order to go on to make the purchase.

The retail marketer plays a significant role in the five stages outlined above. There is a strong reliance by resort marketers, in the UK at least, to depend on visitors coming in "off the street", and to offer short breaks, thereby exposing the product. UK advertising, and Canary Isles touts on the streets have certainly drawn attention to the timeshare product. In the Lake District, in Spain, and in Tenerife, I have witnessed visitors being told on timeshare sites about how the timeshare system works. Marketers have never, in all my experience of visiting resorts over a nine year period, ever told the potential first-time buyer about the existence of the second-hand market.

A marketer's role is to satisfy needs and wants profitably, and there is no first-hand profit to be made in sending a potential buyer to another market, which means there is no reason why a marketer should make clients aware of the second hand market.

Selling on the Internet to a first-timer depends in part on achieving the five steps of exposure, attention, comprehension, acceptance, and retention. Timeshare sites on the Internet abound. How people are attracted to them is a potential study area of its own. Once at the site, searching for a suitable timeshare, and gathering knowledge about it is a knowledge process. It would seem likely that if a site is difficult to navigate, that is, to get around using hotlinks, or the information is inadequate, incomplete, or uninformative, then the search for a suitable resort to purchase could be abandoned at any moment the surfer feels dissonance.

References
Engel J.F, Blackwell R.D., Miniard P.W. (1993), Consumer Behaviour , The Dryden Press, Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch College Publishers