65 delegates and their partners gathered in Taupo, the timeshare capital of New Zealand, last weekend at Millennium Manuels Resort for the annual New Zealand Timeshare Conference.  Delegates came from as far away as Singapore and this year’s conference had a strong contingent of Australian delegates.

Taupo has the highest concentration of timeshare resorts in New Zealand and as a consequence is the logical location to hold the annual conference.  Of the 28 timeshare related properties in New Zealand, 9 are in the Taupo / Turangi area with 6 in Taupo itself.

This is the second year in a row that Taupo has hosted the conference and the view of most delegates was they would like Taupo to be the venue again for next year’s conference given its central location, great scenery and abundance of lakefront timeshare accommodation.

The conference focus this year was on “Changing Times” which reflected changes to insurances as a result of the Christchurch earthquakes, forthcoming changes with regard to Analogue Television and changes to the Unit Titles Act which governs the operation of unit titled properties which includes most timeshare resorts.

The 9 timeshare resorts in the Taupo / Turangi area are traditional timeshare resorts where owners have prepaid to own one or more weeks holiday each year.  The concept has been around since the mid 1980’s and as the Taupo timeshare resorts consistently achieve in excess of 80% year round occupancy, they are a great contributor to tourism in the local area with heavy use of the resorts by exchange guests from overseas.

A recent Australian study indicated that timeshare resorts contribute very heavily to the economy in the area in which they are located through salaries and wages, the utilisation of local tradespeople, expenditure in the local area of guests making use of restaurants, shops and site seeing and other holiday activities.