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CONFERENCE PROGRAMME Friday 8th March
Sunday 10th March
8.30am
TATOC board meeting
7.00am
Breakfast
4.00pm
Conference registration
9.00am
Robin Mills – Welcome back
5.00pm
Annual general meeting 2013
9.05am
Ramy Filo – Going down under
7.00pm
Welcome cocktail and canapés
9.45am
8.00pm
Welcome dinner
Committee chairs under the spotlight
10.30am
Mark Caldicott – Reeling in the Rogues
11.00am
Coffee break
11.30am
Alan Bentley/Patrick Duffy – The importance and benefits of resorts and members working together
12.15pm
Nigel Risner – How to create an impact everytime
1.00pm
Farewell
1.15pm
Lunch
Saturday 9th March
7.00am
Breakfast
9.00am
Conference welcome
9.15am
Official conference opening and TATOC annual report
10.00am
Howard Nusbaum – Reaching out across the pond
10.45am
Coffee break
11.15am
Christine Roberts – Delivering the resort solution
12.15pm
Breakout sessions
13.30pm
Lunch
2.30pm
Calvin Lucock – Working together
3.00pm
Rioma Cominelli – Engaging the senses
3.45pm
Coffee break
4.15pm
The Panel – Howard Nusbaum (ARDA), Dimitris Manikis (RCI), Phil Watson (Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket), Calvin Lucock (RDO), Ramy Filo (Classic Holidays), Jim Wehrle (CARE), Rioma Cominelli (CLG) and Harry Taylor (TATOC)
5.05pm
Ron Haylock – Christel House
5.20pm
Robin Mills – Summary
6.30pm
Drinks reception
7.30pm
Gala dinner with entertainment
The after dinner delegate’s gifts have been kindly donated by Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket
TATOC would like to express its sincere thanks to all participants who have volunteered their time and expertise towards making this year’s conference the biggest yet. We trust all of our delegates have an enjoyable and rewarding experience.
Finding Solutions – TATOC 2013 SPEAKER PROFILES Harry Taylor
– Executive Chairman, TATOC.
Harry retired from a long career in retail management and is now the owner of several timeshare weeks and points. As well as being TATOC's executive chairman and CEO, he is the chairman of the Sunset Bay owners' committee in Tenerife and Lakeview Country Club in Cornwall. Today TATOC has a membership of over 90 resorts representing thousands of timeshare owning families across Europe, over 400 individual members and nearly 30 affiliate companies. From TATOC's city centre offices in Manchester, Harry overseas the management of the TATOC Consumer Helpline and the publication of three websites, the quarterly Sharetime magazine and his new blog. Through the resort accreditation programme, TATOC acknowledges the high standards of accommodation, facilities and amenities at TATOC member resorts and promotes and encourages efficient management with a focus on communication and education. Harry has undertaken the accreditation of several resorts himself and now lobbies and campaigns on matters relating to the legitimate timeshare industry with the media, government departments and other consumer associations. He is a regular contributor on consumer advice shows on radio and has also appeared on television. Away from TATOC, Harry is a keen supporter of St Helens' rugby league and is involved with a number of organisations in his local area.
Geoff Chapman
– Director, TATOC.
After attaining BA and BSc Honours degrees Geoff held a senior position in a multi-national corporation. Here he worked extensively in customer service as a business/systems analyst and project leader for implementing major change. Geoff has been a timeshare owner for 30 years, owning a combination of fixed weeks, floating weeks and timeshare points. He has been a member/director of a timeshare points club for over 10 years and a director on the TATOC board since 2007 with a particular focus on TATOC's consumer helpline and legislation affecting timeshare ownership. Prior to that he was co-opted to the board. Geoff has a long and strongly held belief in the value of quality timeshare and a passionate commitment to enhancing the role of TATOC as the principle representative for timeshare consumers in Europe. Geoff believes: “In these challenging times, timeshare owners need high-quality professional representation and a help-line facility that is genuinely beneficial. It is my pleasure and privilege to contribute, through TATOC, to the protection and best interests of timeshare owners, and to the delivery of the TATOC mission.”
Alan Bentley
– Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Diamond Resorts International. Recently appointed as the chief financial officer of Diamond Resorts International, Alan has over twelve years of experience in the timeshare industry, including having served as executive vice president of Diamond Resorts Europe, Ltd., senior vice president of Sunterra Financial Services and trustee of Leisure Industries. Further, he has more than thirty years of broad-based business experience with extensive expertise in the areas of corporate restructuring, business management and strategic planning, complex financing transactions, capital formation, and mergers and acquisitions. He played a key role in the successful restructuring of Grand Vacation Company in 2001/02 - subsequently Sunterra, then ultimately acquired by Diamond Resorts International in 2007. He has also led the Diamond Resorts team in the recent acquisitions of Pacific Monarch Resorts, Tempus Resorts, ILX Resorts, and Aegean Blue Resorts. Alan graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. Degree in Accounting from Western Kentucky University. He serves on the Advisory Board of Directors for Florida Health Alliance and is an executive committee member of the Accounting Excellence Association at Western Kentucky University. He is a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Insolvency and Restructuring Advisor (CIRA).
Mark Caldicott
– TATOC Consumer Helpline Manager.
From Morecambe, Lancashire, Mark has an HND qualification in hospitality management. He worked at Diamond Resort International’s European head office for five years in the reservations department and then moved to DRI’s Premier Line, the dedicated line for premier members. He joined TATOC in January 2009 as Helpline assistant. Promoted to manager in 2010, Mark oversees the Consumer Helpline, which receives up to 1,000 customer contacts each month. He provides detailed reports on the activities of the Consumer Helpline, produces the monthly cold callers list which is published on the TATOC website and contributes to each issue of TATOC’s Sharetime magazine. Mark is passionate about TATOC and the Consumer Helpline and feels very rewarded when he is able to help owners recoup money lost to rogue companies - this can sometimes be tens of thousands of pounds. Away from TATOC, Mark’s greatest passions are his two longhaired Chihuahuas who keep him very busy.
Rioma Cominelli
– Managing Director, Optima Holidays.
Rioma owns one of South Africa’s largest rental companies, Optima Holidays, renting over 300,000 room nights per year. She also owns a chain of 22 wellness spas, Cellu-Beauty, and undertakes the portfolio of strategy for the Club Leisure Group. Rioma began her career with the Trafalgar Group in 1983. Between 1986 -1997, as managing director of the Group’s leisure division, she developed 12 successful timeshare properties. These were later sold to Club Leisure Group. Rioma became a member of the Young Presidents Association in 1994. Members of this association must reached MD, CEO, chairperson or president level in their companies before reaching their 44th birthday. She was also nominated speaker of the year for the South African Graduate School of Marketing in 1998, and named Ernst & Young’s Business Personality in 1993 and 1997. A candidate in Who’s Who in Southern Africa, Rioma has been a member of the Vacation Ownership Association Executive of South Africa for more than ten years. She held the posts of chairman and vice-chairman of this association and authored the South African timeshare code of ethics. Rioma is actively involved in counselling and supporting the establishment of facilities for the underprivileged, particularly HIV-positive infants in the urban areas of South Africa.
Patrick C. Duffy
– Chief Experience Office, Diamond Resorts International. Patrick Duffy is a recognised leader in optimising the relationship and interaction between an organisation's team members and its customers. Through the implementation of measureable processes at key customer “moments of truth” he has overseen increases in customer satisfaction and return on investment. His programmes create a heightened sense of customer focus and urgency by building on best practices to provide “priceless customer service.” While the entire field of managing customer experiences is often regarded as an intangible art, Patrick has developed quantitative measurement tools at each stage of the process to enable benchmarking along key performance variables. Patrick has become a fixture of philanthropy in the Las Vegas Community. He has begun to build the Las Vegas Art Museum’s (LVAM) permanent collection with a significant gift from a personal collection. His sense of design together with a keen eye for museum quality art has been written about extensively and is reflected in the Goodman-Duffy Collection. Currently, Mr Duffy serves on the board of Opportunity Village and the Las Vegas Art Museum. He is the Arts Commissioner for the City of Las Vegas as well as City Appointed Trustee of the NEON Museum. He maintains an involvement with many various committees throughout the city.
Ramy Filo
– Chairman and CEO, Classic Holidays, Chairman, Dial An Exchange. Prior to joining the timeshare industry in 1999, Ramy was involved in the sales and marketing of industrial electronics for a large U.S. based firm and holds a degree in mechanical engineering. He was the S.E. Asia regional manager responsible for seven international offices. Currently he is the chairman of two iconic industry organisations, Classic Holidays and Dial An Exchange (DAE). He is also CEO of Classic Holidays, the largest privately owned timeshare resort management, sales and marketing company in Australia. Classic represents some 45,000 owners, is responsible for the employment of 650 staff and manages 15 properties throughout Australia. DAE is the world’s largest privately owned timeshare exchange company with offices located throughout Europe, Asia, U.S.A. and Australasia. In 2006 Ramy was appointed as chairman of the Global Alliance for Timeshare Excellence (GATE), which was created in 1999 by leaders of trade associations in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Argentina, South Africa and Australia. GATE’s purpose is to create an alliance of regional and national timeshare associations located around the globe. He also holds the position of vice president for the Australian Timeshare and Holiday Ownership Council (ATHOC).
Ron Haylock
– Vice Chairman, Christel House Europe.
Formerly managing director of RCI Europe from 1984 to 1988, Ron has been involved with Christel House since its first school was founded in Mexico City in 1999. Following her sale of RCI to HFS in 1996, Christel DeHaan wanted to set up schools for deprived children in parts of the world where RCI had enjoyed such success. Consequently, schools were established in Mexico, Venezuela, South Africa and India. A school in Europe was considered but it was felt that there was not the crucial need for a Christel House school as there was in those other countries. Instead, Christel House Europe was established as a U.K.-based charity to raise funds primarily to support the schools in South Africa and India. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of pounds have been raised for those schools from a variety of sources – including the RCI and TATOC conferences, the annual Christel House Open Golf day as well as from the generosity of many individuals who have become devoted followers of Christel House’s remarkable success. Ron is vice chairman of Christel House Europe and continues to be active in fund raising through all these channels.
Calvin Lucock
– Chairman, Resort Development Organisation, RDO. Calvin Lucock is presently the managing director of Holiday Club Canarias, part of Holiday Club, one of Europe’s largest vacation ownership companies. Prior to joining Holiday Club Resorts, he held a number of managerial and business development roles within the vacation ownership industry and freehold business. He was CEO of the Anfi Group in Gran Canaria until 2007. In 2008 he joined Holiday Club to oversee their growth into southern Europe. He has a sound background in banking and finance in the U.K. Calvin was appointed chairman of the Resort Development Organisation (RDO) in 2012.
Dimitris Manikis
– Vice President, RCI Europe, Middle
East & Africa, Managing Director RCI South Africa. Dimitris Manikis is a timeshare industry veteran, having 22 years’ experience in the business. He commenced his career with RCI, straight from university, initially spending two and a half years in the Middle East, two years in Turkey and a year in India. In 1997 he was appointed managing director for RCI’s south eastern region, based in Athens. Six years ago Dimitris took on the role of vice president business development, RCI Europe and shortly followed this with the addition of Middle East and Africa to his regional responsibilities. In 2012 he was also appointed as managing director for RCI South Africa. A Greek national, Dimitris was born in Athens and holds a Bachelor degree in Tourism and Administration from the University of Patras in Greece, and an MSc postgraduate degree in Tourism Marketing from the University of Surrey. His passion for people and work ethic comes from his 84-year-old father, whom he cites as his role model and inspiration. His father built up a grocery retail business in Athens where, helping out as a boy, Dimitris says he learned the value of high customer service levels, a positive outlook and hard work as being the foundations of success in both business and life. Today Dimitris oversees an extensive business development team spanning three business regions and spends most of his life in the air and on the road, visiting RCI clients and his team in local markets. When he’s not travelling, he heads home to spend time with his wife and two teenage daughters in Athens and enjoys spending time at his own timeshare on the Greek island of Paros.
Robin Mills
– Conference Moderator.
Robin Mills is somewhat a veteran of the European timeshare industry, having been working within it since 1985. Robin started with a developer, Imperio, in Portugal and then went on to hold a number of positions within Interval International over a ten-year period at a European level, culminating in the role of group sales director. In 1999 Robin joined RMI Consortium, where he was responsible for designing and implementing the now well-known Infiniti Points programme and developing a retail division for RMI. In 2002 Robin became managing director and then continued in that role through the sale of RMI to what it currently is today, Petchey Leisure. Robin left Petchey Leisure in 2009 and currently works alongside a couple of organisations here in Europe. Robin is also chairman of the RDO’s communications council, sits on the RDO board and is chairman of the annual convention.
Howard Nusbaum
– President and CEO, American Resort Development Association, ARDA. Prior to joining ARDA in 2000, Nusbaum served as director of corporate and industry relations for the American Hotel & Lodging Association as well as executive vice president of the Ohio Hotel & Lodging Association. Before joining the world of hotel association management in 1990, he was vice president of marketing for Janus Hotels and Resorts, a hotel management company with more than 50 hotels and motels nationwide. He serves on the board of directors of the U.S. Travel Association and its executive committee. He previously served on the board of the Travel Business Roundtable. Mr. Nusbaum is also a member of the Real Estate Roundtable, a Washington D.C. advocacy organisation for all types of real estate. Nusbaum is a past board member of the Educational Institute of the American Hotel & Lodging Association. He received the Educational Institute’s “Lamp of Knowledge” for his development of hospitality training programmes. Additional honours include being twice named (1995 and 1997) The Ohio Vocational Education Association “Person of the Year” for his work developing a curriculum for secondary school hospitality students. He received national recognition for his development of the very successful HOST Welfare-to-Work Programme.
Nigel Risner As the only motivational speaker in Europe to have been awarded Speaker of the Year from both The Academy for Chief Executives and Vistage (formerly known as The Executive Committee), Nigel is a respected author, television presenter and a prolific speaker. He speaks with authority: his own life having veered perilously away from comfortable norms at times. He has learned that positive results can come from negative experiences, and that we often learn best from situations, which are unfamiliar and even uncomfortable. As one of the youngest CEO's of a financial services company in the City of London, Nigel knows business as well as he knows life and more importantly he knows what it takes to lead a successful business! Unlike other motivational speakers or consultants, he has the ability to translate that hands on experience into a coherent, compelling and exciting philosophy, which has made him one of Europe's leading keynote speakers and a powerful professional one-to-one coach. Today he conducts more than 150 motivational seminars and corporate speaking engagements a year for an enormous variety of companies and organisations in Britain and overseas. Nigel is an accomplished author with many successful self-help books, CD collections and instructional guides to his credit. His books "You had me at hello" - the new rules for better networking - and "It's a zoo around here" - the new rules for better communication - are literally transforming lives all around the world. His latest book The IMPACT Code is setting a new standard for self-help guides…this one actually works!
Christine Roberts
– General Manager, Melfort Village.
Born in Hampshire Christine has lived and worked in Argyll since the early 1970’s. She has worked at Melfort Village, a 32-cottage self-catering and timeshare village, since 1989 and took on the role of general manager in 1994. Training and development has been a very important factor in her career – Melfort Village was one of the earliest businesses in Argyll to achieve Investors in People, in 1999. They have been members of the Green Tourism Business scheme since then too, finally attaining gold level in 2004. Melfort Village is very well respected and a very popular destination for holidaymakers from all over the world. The resort is now TATOC accredited, an RCI Gold Crown resort and has been awarded four stars from VisitScotland. Christine’s job sets her new challenges every day but she reaps huge rewards from the team she works with and the people – guests, tradesman and suppliers – that she meets. In her spare time, Christine enjoys walking, sailing, gardening and she is very involved with village life, sitting on various local committees. Her latest venture is organising a local group to build a rowing skiff with a view to competitive rowing later in the year.
Philip Watson
– Chief Executive Office, Worldwide Group
of Companies. Philip Watson is the chief executive and driving force behind the Worldwide Group of Companies, which includes the leading re-sale company - Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket. Educated to degree level at Goldsmiths College in London he has been involved in timeshare for over 30 years and is experienced in a range of successful sales and marketing techniques and started this current company over 12 years ago. As well as being chief executive of Worldwide Timeshare Hypermarket he is also a director and shareholder of the parent company Worldwide Timeshare Group of Companies Group Limited who, amongst many other ventures, have recently launched the eXpectations Club. Despite Philip's many business commitments he still finds time to be an active member on the board of Resort Development Organisation and The Timeshare Council as well as being an ardent supporter TATOC the consumer organisation.
Jim Wehrle
– Vice President, CARE, and e-business Director, Sunset World group. Based in Cancun, Mexico where he has lived for over 25 years Jim has worked in the hospitality timeshare industry for the last 19 years with the Sunset World timeshare hotel chain with hotels in Cancun and the Riviera Maya. He has travelled extensively and is the director of Sunset Vacations and the VIP Travel Club, a multi-national vacation club/exit programme. He has worked in timeshare as a liner, VLO and in re-sales and in the hotel business as reservations manager, club manager, in credit financing, investigation and analysis of new projects, sales, hotel management and in the creation of an internal exchange company for timeshare members. He was also named e-business director for the Sunset World Group three years ago where he heads up a team in charge of website design, development, social media marketing, SEO and reputation management and hotel sales and reservations. He has been a member of ARDA for 10 years and a member of C.A.R.E. for 12 years and has served as a vicepresident of C.A.R.E. for nine years where he has also served on the IT, ethics, awards and trade association committees.
TATOC HEAD OFFICE:
PHONE:
Manchester House
Tel +44 161 237 3611
84 – 86 Princess St.
TATOC CONSUMER HELPLINE
Manchester
Tel: 0845 2302430
United Kingdom
Email:
M1 6NG
mark.caldicott@timeshareassocation.org
www.tatoc.co.uk