The origin lies in the economic crisis.
And all great ideas are born in Europe, but only take off on a grand scale in America.
Backstory: 1963. A successful Swiss construction company builds a mountain holiday village, which struggles to sell. The reason: a decline in purchasing power. The company made a bold move – selling the cottages in co-ownership to six buyers, two months each, with shared management. Everyone was satisfied, as it was enough to pay 1/6 of the cost of a cottage that nobody would actually live in for more than two months. The company not only sold successfully, but earned extra profit. The success was reported in real estate bulletins, celebrated by all, and forgotten for a decade.
Remarkably, this company still exists today and is one of the largest timeshare resort groups (Hapimag), focusing on quality 3*-4* resorts, with over 50 complexes in top tourist destinations. The main owners of Hapimag timeshares are Germans, Austrians, and Swiss.
A French company also invented its own timeshare, selling the exclusive right to stay in a hotel in the French Alps from 1964 to 1968, under the slogan: «It’s cheaper to buy a hotel than to rent a room.» This slogan still holds true today for the French Alps.
We should also mention Hilton Hale Kaanapali on Maui, Hawaii, which in 1969 created its own type of timeshare, modifying the original hotel plans to include villas for the first condominium-hotel ownership concept. The idea was to lock in today’s price for many years. The Hilton group was initially skeptical and did not allow the brand name in subsequent timeshare projects for about 40 years, until they realized the potential of monetizing their brand.
1973: The oil crisis hits the U.S., causing thousands of bankruptcies and unprecedented unemployment. The real estate market, particularly resort real estate, suffers. Selling properties in Florida and California became nearly impossible. This was when the successful experiences of the Swiss, French, and Hawaiians were recalled, adapted to the American reality: Americans typically vacationed for a week several times a year. This finalized the idea of timeshare: each apartment was divided into 52 weeks, selling the exclusive right to stay in a specific apartment for a given week of each year.
Timeshare resorts appeared almost simultaneously on the coasts of California and Florida. A few years later, “week-exchange agencies” were created, offering, in exchange for a week in California, a week in Florida for a symbolic fee. These agencies originated from early private ads, and the ability to exchange one’s ownership week for equivalent accommodation worldwide would become one of the most attractive aspects of timeshare.
