The multiple ownership of individual weeks brought with it the guarantee of reservations for those who wanted to ski in the area.
It was an immediate success. By the 1970’s some faltering condominium projects in St. Thomas, Fort Lauderdale and Puerto Rico were converted over to vacation ownership and thereafter timesharing became a viable vacation alternative. Once the concept of vacation ownership was embraced by the United States it began to gain wide acceptance by the public. Sales jumped to over 50 million by the mid 1970’s and has climbed to more than 2 billion annually today. Vacation ownership has enjoyed substantial growth over the years with approximately 3.3 million timeshares sold since 1980. Currently there are over 5,000 vacation ownership resorts in over 75 countries around the world. Exchanging a vacation ownership week in one resort for that of another resort was introduced in 1974 and thereafter timesharing offered variety and flexibility in the vacation experience. Although there are many exchange companies available which provide excellent service, the two major forces are Resort Condominiums International (RCI) which has approximately 3,250 member resorts and Interval International (II) with approximately 1,600 member resorts. Combined, these two companies provided over 1,600,000 exchanges last year. During a 30 year span, the industry has grown from small (15-20 unit ) hotel conversions to the high quality condominium resorts of today. The evolution of the industry from scattered entrepreneurs to well managed professional development companies has brought with it a noticeable change for the better. Definitive leaders have emerged and created standards and ethics for management, marketing and sales practices.
One such organization is the American Resort Development Association (ARDA) who’s members are required to comply with the established «Code of Ethics.» The recent entrance into the marketplace by major hospitality chains such as Disney, Hilton, Ramada, and Marriott has greatly enhanced the quality and image of the industry. Vacation ownership resorts of today are luxurious, spacious and well located. By the advent of these stronger and more professional development and management companies along with the weeding out the less desirable developers and marketers, the industry is experiencing a noticeable swing from a historically negative to a very positive public image. One of the industry’s leading analysts (Ragatz and Associates) concluded that the majority of timeshare owners are very satisfied with their purchase and in fact, many own multiple weeks. The future of vacation ownership is very optimistic and has tremendous potential. What Is Vacation Ownership ? Vacation Ownership «Timesharing» is the right to use specific weeks of a resort during a specific time period. Simply put, it is the pre-purchase of a vacation. It is important to understand that vacation ownership is a commodity which is purchased to be enjoyed and used over the years.
One should never purchase a timeshare with the intent of reselling it for a profit.
Vacations are holidays for which we spend money to relax and rejuvenate; they are not investments. Ownership of a timeshare is very similar to ownership of a condominium except that your rights are limited to a certain week during the year. The form of ownership can be Deeded, Leased or a License. The License is somewhat different in that it is most commonly a membership in a club. Providing you are a member in good standing, you have the right to use the club and all it’s amenities. Be sure to read and understand all the terms and conditions of your club membership before you make the decision to buy. Most vacation ownership consists of either a deeded interest or a leased interest for a specific number of years. A Deeded interest is owned outright forever. It an absolute right which can be sold, leased, or even willed to your heirs. Most timeshares which exist today are deeded ownership. The Leased interest is much like an apartment lease except right to use it is restricted to a specific week during the year. Upon the expiration of the lease term your right to use will generally terminate and return to the resort. With a leased interest you should know the terms and conditions of the lease prior to making the decision to buy. The time of your use can be either Fixed or Floating. Fixed time is a specific week during the year usually defined by a number.
Generally the week will begin on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday and is given a number starting with the first week in January an run through the end of December. (Example – week 14 might be April 7 through April 13.) Floating time means you have the right to select any available week within a certain season of the year. Therefore, if you own a summer season week you could pick any week which falls within the defined summer months. However, competition between existing owners for prime weeks in very desirable location can impact availability. It is important to find which type of use best fits your specific travel needs. Each resort is different and you should ask if there are other benefits which are available to its owners. Many resorts offer special reduced rental rates for extra nights or us of other resorts which are owned by the developer. This can add to you flexibility and provide substantial saving on vacation costs. Additionally, consider carefully how and where you normally vacation. This is very important in making your decision about where you should buy and what you will be trading. Important Facts About Vacation Ownership – Timeshare is one of the fastest growing areas of the travel and tourism industry. – Timeshare owners live in more than 200 countries around the world. – Major brands now involved in timeshare internationally include Hilton, Hyatt, Four Seasons, Sheraton, Ramada and De Vere. – On a worldwide basis, more than 12 million people took a timeshare vacation in 1999 – There are around 5,500 timeshare resorts throughout the world in more than 90 countries. – The industry is worth in excess of $6 billion annually. The top 10 timeshare companies alone reported combined sales in excess of $2.64 billion in 1999. – During 1999 each of the top 10 performing timeshare companies worldwide recorded sales in excess of $100 million. – RCI, the world’s leading timeshare exchange organization, arranged vacations for seven million people worldwide in 2000, making it one of the world’s largest travel companies. Timeshare Today And In The Future The modern timeshare industry continues to expand at a rapid rate, with new markets opening up in Asia and Eastern Europe and consolidation prevalent in the established markets of Western Europe and North America.
Firmly established as a key sector of the mainstream vacation market, the multi-billion dollar timeshare industry now embraces modest entrepreneurs and mighty corporations.
Its global reach with close to 6,000 resorts in more than 90 countries extends from Spain to China, Mexico to South Africa. Some of the world’s biggest names in the hospitality and leisure sector now have timeshare interests – Hilton, Sheraton, Disney, Ramada, Four Seasons, Hyatt, Westin, Ritz-Carlton and Radisson. At the same time, the list of well-known European companies with timeshare interests continues to grow – RIU Hotels (50% owned by TUI – Touristik Union International, Europe’s largest tour operator), Sol Melia, De Vere, Macdonald Hotels in partnership with Barratts (the UK’s Number One house builder), Mondi Ferienclub in Germany. Quality developments around the world are enjoyed by millions of owners, their families and friends, making the phenomenon of timeshare a success story without equal. In 1999 over 12 million people took a timeshare vacation. Timeshare owners come from over 190 countries but more of them live in the United States than anywhere else in the world – 47%! In fact the US has the lion’s share of timeshare resorts – over 1,500. And that accounts for more than 37% of the total worldwide. In the western world, timeshare is now a highly organized and regul
ated industry.
Trade bodies such as the American Resort Development Association (ARDA) and the Organisation for Timeshare in Europe (OTE) work to apply codes of conduct and ensure that expansion is based on sound commercial practice and ethical standards.
There is also considerable regional, national and international legislation in place which aims to help protect the rights of potential purchasers and discourage the use of high-pressure sales tactics. Timeshare in the future The worldwide timeshare industry looks set to grow in popularity and log record sales in the months and years ahead. Social trends mean more people have more time and money to devote to travel and the concept of vacation ownership. In many parts of the world, regulation has given timeshare a firm footing, helping to reassure and protect purchasers with a series of consumer protection measures. Since its inception, timeshare has undergone a metamorphosis, according to Timeshare: Coming of Age, an independent report published in October, 1999. With the advent of the points-based system, the original real estate concept has been transformed into «a flexible, pre-paid vacation membership concept, placing timeshare where it belongs – in the mainstream of travel, tourism, hospitality and leisure». In 10 years time who knows where the next development will be?
Niche web directories are a great way for small online business owners to list their information in a place where others in the industry and potential customers can easily find them.
Directories group sites that are all related to one theme or subject. What niche web directories would best suit your business? Niche Web Directories Versus Search Engines Niche web directories are different from search engines in that they are highly specialized. Go to a craft directory, for example, and type in the words ’space travel’ and you’ll probably come up with craft supplies to make planetary systems.
Very specific! You won’t find NASA’s website or scientific analyzes of recent space shuttle flights in an arts and crafts niche web directory. But go to space or science niche web directory and you may find a link to the craft site that specializes in making model space shuttles. Niche web directories do relate to search engines in that search engines rank them highly. Due to the intensity of filtering that most directories apply to the sites that they include, search engines highly respect them. This level of respect is good for the page rankings of all the sites listed in the directories. Getting your site listed in appropriate niche web directories provides you with a one way link from a reputable, highly ranked site and that’s one of the most important aspects of the page ranking formula for search engines. Traffic When you get web traffic through listings on search engines, you may or may not be what the web surfer was looking for. Yes, there is the chance that the person didn’t know that you existed and, now that she does, will bookmark your site to return for purchases at a later date. However, this is a big ‘if.’ Traffic that you receive as a result of niche web directories will generally be more apt to buy because a higher percentage of them were looking specifically for you and what you have to offer.
Partners and Competitors Because niche web directories are based around themes or industries, the editors are usually experts in the chosen theme.
This helps them to choose neighbor listings that are relevant and high quality, minimizing spam entries and putting you in good company. Just as a customer may search these listings in hopes of finding everything he or she needs to, you, too, can search them to check out your competition. What else is out there? Who is competing for your target audience? Perhaps you will see a niche within a niche that needs attention and fill it. Also, because links raise your page ranking with search engines, niche web directories are a great way to find companies who sell complimentary products and services with whom you can trade links.
If you sell antique car parts, you may want to have a link page that includes links to antique car show sites or fan sites for antique cars.
Building up your links to other relevant sites in your industry will help increase your page ranking in search engines and will increase your traffic as well. Niche Web Directory Options Some niche web directories are so focused on attracting the most qualified sites that they will pay to list if you apply and qualify. This is always a great sign of a specific, reputable niche web directory. Some will also offer you highlighting options like placing your website listing in bold, brackets, or highlighting it for optimum visibility.
It’s important that webmasters do not ignore the opportunities that niche web directories provide. Exposure, especially in this form, can do nothing but boost your traffic, boost your sales, and boost your profits.
Using Banners to market your web site Banner advertising is on just about every web site you visit today.
Banners are a form of advertising. This advertising is used to help pay for the site and help make the owner money. Regardless of the type of business or web site you have, you can use banners to help increase your income. The advertising revenue generated from banners falls into 3 groups: Pay Per Impression (PPI), Pay Per Click (PPC), and Pay Per Sale/Lead (PPS).
Pay Per Impression With PPI banner advertising you are paid each time your advertiser’s banner is shown on your web pages. A term CPM is often used with banner advertising. It means cost per thousand, which basically means you will be paid $x.xx for every 1000 banners displayed to the visitors of your web site.
This is the easiest method to earn money with as every time someone visits your web site you get paid. However, this is not used very much and is very easily abused. If you have a 1000 visitors per day and are paid $5 per thousand then you make $150 per month. As an advertiser you do NOT want to use PPI. It would be like paying the newspaper or phone company money every time they said someone opened the newspaper or phonebook. Pay Per Click With PPC banner, you are paid more than with PPI but only when the visitor actually clicks on the banner rather then just seeing it. With PPI you many be paid $5.00 CPM (per thousand) and with PPC you could be paid $5 per click.
However, not as many will click on the banner. Banner design has a lot to do with what we call the conversion rate. That is basically how effective is the banner. Conversion rates for banners is usually less than 1%. A very good banner may have a 5% conversion rate. Remember that is a passive income stream. It is working around the clock and requires no work on your part. So, if you have 1000 people a day coming to your web site and you have a 1% conversion rate with a payment of 50 cents per click, you could be earning $150 a month just for having the banner there.
As an advertiser this is a little better than PPI. At least now the visitor is on your web site and you have a chance to gather information about them and possibly sell them your product or service. Pay Per Sale/Lead PPS banner advertising using pays the highest dollars of these three methods, but only generates income when the advertiser makes a sale to someone visiting from your web site It will have the lowest conversion rate of the three. PPS banners only work well for the web site owner if the advertiser does a good job with the banner design (creating a desire to click), selling (presenting information), and closing (getting the sale). None of these do you control directly. Selecting PPS advertisers for your site should be well thought out. As an advertiser, this is the preferred type of banner advertising. Where to find advertisers I think the best place to find people that want to place banner ads on your site will be the affiliate programs. This is also a good place for you to advertise that you would like to place banners on others sites as well. Read the pages carefully. Banners can be expensive if you don’t generate any sales. If you have friends or business associates that you do business with you can ask them if they would like to place a banner on your site or if you could place a banner on theirs.
These exchanges become more and more popular as your site becomes more popular as well.
A new source for banner ads are from the major search engines. Google Adwords are probably the best known new source for advertising on a pay per basis. This works both ways. You can pay to have your ad/banner placed on others sites as well as have other web site ads placed on your site. When your ad is displayed and someone clicks on it they will visit your site and you pay Google for the visit. When you allow Google to place ads on your site and someone clicks the ad, you get paid. In the resource section of rd-webhosting.com you will find more information on using banners to market your website. Using Classified Ads to market your web site Classified ads are just like in the newspaper. They are small detailed ads that offer your product or services and provides a contact (your email or web site). A quick search on Yahoo for classified ads will find over 58,000,000 entries for sites and people who will either sell or place your classified ads on their web sites. Classified ad sites fall into two categories: Free and Paid. Free sites should be avoided. BE CAREFUL… most free classified ad web sites. are farming your email address to sell to others. You will find you email box loaded with tons of offers and once it starts it will never stop. Paid classified web sites, however, can be like having a store in the world’s largest shopping mall for pennies a day in rent.
One of the largest classified ads web sites is…eBay. Think about this. For about 30 cents an ad (item to sell) you get listed for one week where over 1 million people a day come to shop. I have more information on eBay and other auction sites under Web Basics. There are other forms of advertising as well. One of which we discussed before was newsletters. Others include, your email signature, banner ads, ebooks and affiliates. Each are discussed here. Click on the Marketing Resources to review each form of advertising. This is part one of a multi-part series of Marketing you web site. Please visit us at http://rd-webhosting.com for the rest of the series. In the next section we will cover marketing you web site using email, e-books, letterhead and magazines. More information on marketing, website design and other areas of Internet Business can be found at http://rd-webhosting.com in our resources area.
Filed Under Internet and Money | Comments Off on Marketing you web site – Part 2 – Using banners ad and classified ads
Here you can find 15 businesses that you can start fast. These businesses are profitable and they are in high demand. You could expect to receive good profits from most of them. The drawback is that there is too much competition for the majority of these businesses. Anyway, I will briefly describe them here and show you how you can also claim a piece of the profits from the online business world. 1. Sell information. People are starving for information nowadays. Information could be anything that communicates a message. Art is a kind of information, images, files, software, games, books and e-books are information too. You can create your own products or have other people do it for you. Either way, you will have to invest some time and money. If you want to have the products created for you, then you can outsource the projects to others even to people in other countries. This is a good technique that a lot of companies are using today. Selling information is very profitable because the costs of reproducing the products you sell are next to nothing.
Once you create the first product you can create as many copies as you need virtually at no cost.
The time required to distribute the products to your clients is next to zero too. Finally the shipping costs often disappear on the Online business world. This is definitely a profitable business. 2. Become an affiliate. If you don’t want to create anything you can sell what others create. Your only duty will be to advertise. Advertising is not easy, specially in such a competitive arena that is affiliate marketing. On the other hand, if you have the patience and discipline to learn how the super affiliates make it, then it can be really worthy the time spent on this venture. Some top affiliates make tens of thousands per month from this business alone. There are just so many companies out there that want you to promote their products. This is one of the reasons why some new affiliates get lost. How can you know which companies are trustworthy and which ones are not? Simple. Stay with the companies that pay you high commissions like 50% to 75% per sale and which conversion ratios are fairly high. For example, if a company pays you 65% commission to sell their product and for every 100 people that see the product 2 – 3 purchase it, then you may consider promoting the product. Also expect to receive at least $20 per sale. I wouldn’t advertise a product if I can not get at least $20 for every sale. Do the math. Let’s say that you get paid $25 per sale.
Your advertising costs are $5 per 100 people. If on average 2 out of 100 purchase the product, then you will get a huge return on investment. Of course these are hypothetical figures. The real world is a little bit different. To find these products may not be that easy. But that’s the basic idea of how starting an affiliate business works. 3. Sell advertising space. This is another good idea. The main thing you will need is a website with a lot of real good quality traffic. You can get truck loads of cheap traffic from autosurf programs and other sources. You can trick some advertisers but most of them won’t stay with you after their test spend. That’s why it is better to do it right from the beginning. This business can be profitable but you definitely need reasonable quantities of quality traffic everyday. You can do this by giving away good quality content both on your website as well as other places. For example you can write articles and publish them on article banks or e-zines. You can write a short e-book and offer it for free to your visitors on the home page. You can write programs reviews. You can set up a forum on your website and let you visitors interact with each other. Anything that could provide a service or that can enhance the experience of your visitors can be a good source of traffic. The good thing about it is that most of those visitors will come back to your site from time to time and these techniques are free. If your website offers good content to your clients, you won’t need to pay to get visitors. They will come to you for free. 4. Trade. Trading is very risky, that’s why it can be very profitable too. It is like they say: “no risk, no reward.” You should never trade or invest the money that you cannot afford to lose, but if you have some spare capital, this can be another source of income. Most online brokers today will allow you to open an account with them with very little initial investment. You can open an account with as little as $300 to $1,000. Also there are many markets that you can trade in. You can trade currencies at Forex. You can trade stock shares at the different exchanges through the online brokers.
You can trade commodities at the Futures market. You can trade options and many other derivatives. The are many choices for those who want to trade for a living. Just a cautious note here. Trading is not as easy as many people want you to believe it is. It takes time to master any market including the financial markets. It is better to trade on paper for a while before you compromise your real capital. Some people become rich trading, but 90% of the traders fail. 5. High Yield Investment Programs. There are many opportunities on the Internet to invest in programs which promise high rates of return in a short period of time. Most of them claim to be private investor clubs and they say that they get most of their profits from financial trading and investing. Some of these companies seem legitimate but many are pure scams. Discretion is recommended to anyone who chooses to invest on these programs. Some offers are so unbelievable that they are simply that: unbelievable. Remember that “if something sounds too good to be true it probably is.” When you visit the forums you can read how many people lose money on these programs while others claim that they paid for their vacations or something else with the money they got from one of these programs. Many high yield investment programs are short lived. They disappear quickly ripping off many investors. Others tend to be more stable. Typically I have seen that those companies which offer more reasonable returns like 1% – 2% profits daily tend to be more reliable and last longer. Anyway, the reward on this investment can be big, so the risk is also big. Discretion is recommended. Avoid anything that sounds like a game, pyramid or gambling. 6. Online Auctions. Online auctions can be a good source of revenues. You can sell virtually anything on these auctions. Who doesn’t know about e-Bay? Almost everyone on the civilized world knows about it.
E-Bay is not the only one though. Stormpay is a good player too and there are many others. The idea is to get good quality products at the lowest possible prices. You can achieve this by getting to know the best wholesalers for the products you are trying to sell. If you can buy bellow wholesale price and then sell the items individually you may realize a nice monthly profit by doing that. Some people’s main source of income are online auctions and they make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Another way to make money with online auctions is to be a dropshipper, which I explain bellow. 7. Be a dropshipper. When you are a dropshipper you don’t need to buy the products that you are selling. This eliminates some of your risks. You just make the presentation for the products whether on online auctions websites or your own websites and wait for somebody to purchase the products. Once they send you the payment you transfer the order to the distributor who package and send the product to the buyer. Then you get paid a portion of the sale price. Some individuals prefer this because they don’t have to deal with the merchandise nor the clients and still they get handsome profits from this business.
8. Multi-Level Marketing. When you join a multi-level marketing company you can sell other people products like with affiliate marketing and recruit others to do the same. You then get paid for every sale that your sal
es team generate. You can do all of this over the Internet without having to meet people personally. The beauty of this business is the residual income that it can generate for you. If you train your sales people well and they do the same with their sales team your profits multiply over time. This may sound like a pyramid but it is not. Genuine multi-level companies won’t charge you to join their program. They are interested in your advertising efforts not in your money. Pyramids charge you to join, usually a large amount and the only way for you to make more money is to pull more people into the scheme. With multi-level marketing you can make money even if you do not invest anything on the company. You make money by selling their products as well as training other people to sell the products. The people that you train do not have to pay anything to join the company either. They are just sales people not investors. 9. Start a consultancy business. If you have knowledge and expertise about a particular topic, you can start a consultancy business online and help others.
You can offer your knowledge and advice for a fee. You can do this directly from your own website or your website can be used as an advertising tool. Then you refer your visitors to other media you can use to run your consultancy business like your telephone or any meetings that you organize and they can attend. 10. Exchange e-currencies. There are different e-currencies on the Internet today. Sometimes somebody needs to exchange one kind of e-currency for another. For example, they may have e-gold and they may need e-bullion. So, when they want to exchange money they go to online money exchangers and exchange the money. The transactions occur mostly through the exchangers websites, sometimes manually and sometimes automatic. This is a lucrative business. If you become an exchanger you get paid a small fee for the transaction. It could be for example 3% of the exchange amount. So, if someone has $1,000 in e-gold and they want e-bullion, then you charge three percent of the e-gold you are receiving ($30) plus the amount that e-gold charges you to receive the funds. That’s your profit $30. Then you send them the e-bullion. How it is usually done is that once they send you the e-gold you subtract the fee from the e-bullion that you send them. So, they receive less in e-bullion than what they send you in e-gold. This may not look as much money to you. But if you have several hundreds of transactions per day, you can make serious money this way. The drawback is that you need funds to do the exchanges. You may also need to find out what are the rules and regulations about this business in your local jurisdiction. But I certainly believe that this can be another good source of revenues on the Internet. 11. Autosurf for profits. Autosurf programs has spread all over the Internet lately. The idea is as follows. You pay a company some money to receive website visitors. The company send you visitors and give you the opportunity to surf other members websites as well. If you surf other members websites you can get paid a percentage of the amount you paid on a predetermined time frame, let’s say weekly.
For example, you pay the company $100. The company promises to pay you back 15% weekly if you surf 15 websites per day. Then you click on a link every day and the websites rotate on your browser for a set amount of time (e.g.: 15 seconds). Then you close your browser and go do something else. At the end of that week you will have $115 on your account. The more you invest the more you make. Many autosurf programs are scams. They do not provide a legitimate service to their users. Others are very effective. I specially like the ones that require the users to manually surf the websites. This way I make sure that a real visitor is visiting my pages and not a machine. 12. Start an affiliates network company. If you start an affiliate network company you will be the intermediary between the merchants and the affiliates. You can also offer the merchants a payment processing system and allow them to use that tool to collect payments from their clients. Your main focus on this business is not to create products nor to advertise products. You mostly act like a bank. The merchant join your company to sell products using your services and to get affiliates. The affiliates join to be able to sell the products on the program and receive commissions. The merchants offer the commissions they are willing to pay and take care of their customers. You collect the payments from the merchants’ clients and send payments to the merchants and affiliates on a predetermined time frame. You charge a fee for your services. That’s basically it. That’s the basic idea of how this business works. Of course, it is not that easy in real life. You will face competition, but the good thing about it is that you don’t have to create the products and you don’t have to advertise them either. You act like the bank and intermediary between affiliates and merchants. 14. Become an e-books wholesaler.
You can also purchase e-books in wholesale quantities and sell them all over the Internet. A package of e-books may cost you a few dollars and you can sell them over and over again. Some people write e-books and offer master resale rights on those books. This means that not only you can resell the books but also let your clients sell them to their clients and on and on. The reason some authors do this is because they want to get maximum exposure for other products that they are selling or for the affiliate links that they included within those e-books. Then you can get a package of those e-books and software with master resell rights and sell it to other people. This way you do not have to create your own products. You make a small investment once and profit many times. 15. Sell hosting and memberships. This business can provide residual income for you. When you sell hosting you are basically selling a space on a server to webmasters. This provides a good source of revenues because many webmasters stay subscribed with the same hosting company for many months or years. They pay a monthly fee and as long as they stay subscribed you keep receiving profits. The same happens with membership sites like dating websites.
You don’t need many subscribers to be profitable.
This business is different to others for the reasons that I will explain bellow. If you write an e-book and try to sell it to others, you will sell that e-book once to one customer. That customer may never purchase anything else from you again. If you sell a membership to somebody that person will give you money on a recurring basis. You will sell the same product to the same person several times. This provide a source of residual income in which your money grows exponentially over time. Let’s say that you have 1,000 subscribers and they pay you on average $5 each per month for your subscription. If you don’t sell further subscriptions you will still receive on average $5,000 per month. On the other hand, if you market single sale products you need to keep selling the same amount of products every month to new clients if you want to keep receiving the same amount of monthly profits. That’s why residual income is so important. A web hosting or paid subscriptions business offer a great opportunity to receive monthly residual income. EasyWebRiches © 2006
Filed Under Internet and Money | Comments Off on The 15 Online Businesses that you can start today for big profits
