Sunset Cove in Marco Island, FL is an upscale timeshare resort that’s part of the RCI Registry Collection.

The three-year-old partnership between IHG and Orange Lake Resorts took a giant step forward last month with the purchase of two additional resorts by Orange Lake. The properties in Las Vegas and Marco Island, FL will become part of Holiday Inn Club Vacations, an alliance launched in late 2008 that marries Orange Lake’s vacation ownership expertise with the brand recognition of Holiday Inn and the marketing muscle of IHG.

“Our alliance with Orange Lake has been so successful it showed us we’re strong enough to add ancillary businesses to our core hotel model without distracting from our core mission while producing accretive value for IHG and our partners,” says Del Ross, vice president, U.S. sales and marketing for IHG. “It whet our appetite for other alliances and we have since launched the InterContinental Alliance Resort program.”

The 648-unit Las Vegas Desert Club near the Strip is the newest property in the Orange Lake Resorts portfolio.

The 648-unit Las Vegas Desert Club is the most significant element of the transaction. The one- and two-bedroom property a block from the Strip adds a western outpost to complement Orange Lake’s portfolio of six locations in the East that span from Vermont to Wisconsin to Florida, as well as Tennessee and South Carolina. Orange Lake will complete an ongoing renovation of the property, and it should join the Holiday Inn Club Vacations roster sometime in 2012.

“This is a huge step for us,” says Orange Lake President & CEO Don Harrill of the Las Vegas acquisition. “I liken it to five or six years ago when we were a single-site resort in Orlando and began to build a network of resorts around this hub to satisfy our customer base in the East. And now that we’ve established a beachhead in Las Vegas, we can evolve our product offerings and build our membership in the West.”

The 36 units at Sunset Cove have three bedrooms and range in size from 1,667 to 1,900 square feet each.

Sunset Cove, the 36-unit timeshare resort in Marco Island, is equally important, says Harrill, but for different reasons. “It’s a high-end product that should fit into our Signature Collection of properties. It’s already part of RCI’s Registry Collection, and we plan to make a significant investment to ensure it maintains that level of quality,” he says. The resort features three-bedroom units ranging from 1,667 to 1,900 square feet. Common areas include a pool and sundeck, bar, promenade, boat dock and fitness center. It will become part of HICV this fall.

Harrill says the company will look for other opportunities in the West with targets including San Diego, Phoenix, San Francisco and Hawaii. “We plan to be opportunistic in our growth strategy,” he says. “While acquisitions are typically more cost effective in this environment, we don’t rule out new development in the right situations.”