Some friendly and deeply suntanned kids on a scooter approach you and start a conversation about your holidays. Puzzled about their interest in you, but also charmed by their charisma, you engage in a little chit-chat.
While the young man fumbles around on his scooter a few meters away, the girl pulls out a piece of cardboard and hands it to you: "I just have one left, why don't you see if you get lucky." she says with a charming French accent. You immediately pull back, because you don't want to buy a lottery ticket.
"No", she laughs, "It's for free.."
You are holding now a card with several options to scratch of a graphic under which - presumably - a prize might be hidden. Okay, you go for it and dirty your fingernail with the ink. And there it is! It must be your lucky day. An icon is revealed with a hotel bed visible!
The girl screams: "Jacque, come, you need to see this! They have won, they won the big prize." She jumps up and down, and Jacque runs over. He seems to be equally impressed. "First time I see this..." he says breathless and with the gravity of just having witnessed a metaphysical event.
You still don't know what you have won. "An almost free vacation," explains the girl. She turns the winning card around and shows you an address. "This is so great! You just have to go to this resort and show them the card. They will talk to you for a while to explain what they do and after you get your free stay. I'm so happy I have met you and could do this for you!" she gushes and hugs you.
So lucky, such nice people, so much emotion, this island really is the greatest in the world.
Or might this all be too good to be true?
Let's start back with the birth of modern St. Maarten. The dramatic economic development began in the Nineteen-Eighties and was mostly supported by a booming timeshare industry. These were the years when fractional ownership of a vacation property was still firmly connected to a specific unit and week of the year. Many timeshare-owners were so thrilled with their vacation property that they purchased additional weeks; an indication that the original concept had a healthy market with happy clients.
Today, actual apartment units are not offered anymore; now it is membership programs which are sold. Several reputable organizations run point systems, which give access to a vast worldwide network of properties.
Timeshare and the related vacation ownership concepts have frequently come under scrutiny. Often, the product itself is excellent. It is the marketing methods which cause concern.
The girl in our opening paragraph and her boyfriend Jacque are OPCs - Off Premise Consultants to one or several resorts selling vacation club membership. Their job is to approach couples which are newcomers to the island and to convince them to attend a 90-minute presentation at one of the resorts participating in this marketing scheme. If they are successful and the couple shows up to participate in the presentation, they receive up to $120. There will also be a managing company which has them under contract, and this company will get another $100. The OPC are trained to look out for the right target group because the resorts know precisely to whom they want to sell.
Making friends with strangers is legal, and nobody intends to block this. But offering scratch cards is prohibited by local law on the Dutch side. Because no matter where you scratch: each window is a winner. The little song and dance show of our OPCs is - frankly - just a disgusting example of deceit and unfortunately all too common. Timeshare and vacation ownership marketing is completely illegal on the French side.
By presenting the scratch card at the sales desk of the resort, the salesperson knows right away that you are gullible and that there is a good chance you will accept an overpriced offer from him or her.
And what is the Grand Prize? The only thing you have won after wasting precious ninety minutes of vacation time is a somewhat subsidized (but not free) two or three-day stay at another resort of the brand, probably in Orlando. There you will be punished with another mandatory hard sales pitch.
Still, taking a tour - as it is referred to in timeshare-sales lingo - mustn't be a bad thing. There are a lot of good resales on the market and post-Irma renovated resorts also have new inventory. There are incentives for attending a tour which are so valuable in themselves that they justify the time investment. In the past, we at St-Maarten.com run our own incentive program. The rewards for attending a presentation were anything from a free car rental for one complete week to sumptuous dinners, jewelry or excursions. We do consider bringing this program back during the coming months but felt that it should be introduced with some straight talk about the industry beforehand.
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