Thomas Cook ventures into timeshare sales

TIMESHARE holiday representatives have long had a bad reputation for their high-pressured selling techniques but one of the UK's largest travel agents yesterday announced that it was to enter the market.

Thomas Cook said it would be promoting "upmarket properties" in the UK, the Mediterranean, Florida and New York and promised that it would not be using the same hard-sell methods that have brought the industry into disrepute.

"We are going to sweep this industry clean and show British holiday-makers that time-share is an attractive value-for-money proposition," a spokesman said.

The company will concentrate on villas and apartments in some "exclusive" resorts and prices will start from pounds 2,500 for one week per year.

"Most people are extremely happy with the quality of their timeshare," said Andrew Windsor, retail director for Thomas Cook.

"We will only be dealing with well-established brand names such as Disney and Marriot who have extensive experience of time-share resorts.

"In addition to that people will buy their timeshare in Florida, for example, but they will be able to exchange it for a week in New York if they want, so there is more flexibility."

Nearly 40 per cent of all time-share properties owned are in the Canary Islands, with a further 20 per cent in Spain and 19 per cent in the UK.

Neil Cooper, chief executive of the Time Share Council, said the organisation was delighted that Thomas Cook had endorsed the industry.

"Timeshare used to have a very bad reputation, mainly because of the hard-sell but there has been legislation to change all that and there is much more confidence in the product nowadays," he said.

"It is now illegal to buy a timeshare property until you return home which allows the person to really think about whether they can afford it.

"There is also a cooling off period when you can back out of the contract, which has put an end to a lot of the hard-sell because people know they can change their minds.

"Timeshare has really lost its stigma nowadays. When you buy a time-share you buy a week in one resort, but you can swap that and go somewhere else so what you actually get is a giant international exchange organisation."

The number of UK timeshare holidaymakers has grown from fewer than 500,000 in 1987 to around 1.1 million in 1997.