The Bougainvillea Beach Resort in Barbados, an RCI-affiliated property.

The two big dogs in the vacation ownership industry—RCI and Interval International—made news this week. RCI introduced a unique enhancement to its RCI Weeks program that gives its members greater transparency and flexibility as they plan vacations using timeshare exchange. Interval’s news was an acquisition, actually one made by its parent, Interval Leisure Group, which purchased Trading Places International, a management and exchange company that works primarily with shared-ownership homeowners’ associations.

For the first time, RCI Weeks members can now get a true fix on the trading value of the vacation intervals they own and then compare them to the vacations to which they aspire. In addition, they will be able to combine timeshare intervals they deposit with RCI and use them to acquire vacations of higher value. And they retain credits on the unused portions of the intervals they used to make switches.

“For a long time it was a mystery to many timeshare owners as to what their intervals were worth,” says Geoff Ballotti, RCI’s CEO. “And at times, it created disappointment when they realized they couldn’t trade their interval to get to Hawaii in week 51 or 52. So from a customer service point of view, we thought it could be transformational if we could show our members exactly what their timeshares are worth.”

Ballotti says consumer response to the plan has been very positive. RCI-affiliated resorts can benefit, too, he says, and RCI has been working with its affiliates to help them train their sale staffs on how to explain the advantages of the new program.

“Our affiliates like it because our members, who are their owners, like it. The more satisfied owners are, the more likely they’ll buy additional intervals,” he says. “And since the plan allows members to combine intervals to trade up, the developers see it as another way to sell more timeshares to their existing owners.”

Ballotti sees the growing demand among all consumers for transparency and flexibility as a reason why the new initiative will be successful. “The Internet, in particular, has created a new breed of consumers,” he says. “They feel empowered because everything online is transparent, and it’s what they expect. This new transparency in our product helps people understand us and understand what they bought. They can trust their developer more and trust us more.”

Interval Leisure’s purchase of Trading Places furthers the firm’s strategy of finding acquisitions that complement the company’s other units: timeshare exchange giant Interval International and Aston Hotels & Resorts, a hotel and vacation home management and rental business based in Hawaii. ILG will operate Trading Places as a separate unit. The Laguna Niguel, CA-based company manages more than 20 resorts in the mainland U.S., Hawaii and Mexico and provides exchange services to 300,000-plus vacation owners.

“It makes great sense for us because it is a fee-for-service, CapEx-light company that fits into the entire mantra of businesses in which ILG is involved,” says Craig Nash, chairman, president & CEO of Interval Leisure. “It just happens to share some of the same market space as Interval International and Aston.”