Bourne

Let's have some fun...

Steamboat Bill

It depends on if they change the Companion membership to a 6-9 month booking window

Bourne

2 say we are running for the hills...

I can guess one.

Steamboat Bill

HCC has 350 members now....even using a very conservative 1 per week, puts us at 375, if we get 2 per week, then we will be at 400.

I voted 400 as this was the closest to what I think we will have and I hope we will break 400.

Now keep in mind that I would be VERY disappointed if between now and year end we add 25-50 new Companion members...it will barely be enough to buy one new home and create much more competition for the Summer weeks.

vineyarder

Is this physical members, or full member equivalents?

__________________
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Living in a vacuum sucks!

Bourne

Physical members a.k.a warm bodies including the nasty, evil, devil worshippers...

want2travelmore

Will be north of 360 end of this month per Heath today.

pwrshift

Does an increase of only 10 members indicate a severe slow down in HCC growth, especially with the incentive of another one of their twice-yearly price increases? Look what price increases are doing to the airlines.

Hopefully HCC is getting 10% of their biz from Canada which is the comparative ratio to population ... that would be 36 members.

When I spoke to ER's VP last week and a Quintess rep they both stated they already have more than 10% of their memberships in Canada, with most of those coming over the past year. UE/PE had a meeting at Canoe - 54 floors above Toronto's waterfront - last week, to the push is on for Canada's 'par' dollars it seems.

caribbeansun

Did you go to the event?

I'm not convinced it would help them since the room was too small, the temperature was >85 degrees and it was unbelievably uncomfortable. They went low-end on the wine they were serving (Henry Pelham). It was a real disconnect from what they are trying to sell.

Other than a very brief presentation of some homes without identifying what level they apply to there wasn't any information available that hasn't already been received. In fact they indicated that their "bonus" incentives from the event would only be offered to Elite and Signature members and not Premier members.

The demographics in the room seemed wrong making us wonder how many were fillers and the member input seemed scripted and not spontaneous - that's the impression we were left with but it could be that they were just nervous speaking in front of a room of people.

To be honest I think it may have hurt more than helped them.

All that aside I agree that there are a number of Canadians looking at DC's in the US with our stronger dollar however keep in mind that our entire population is less than California so...

Bourne

10 in a month is slow???

HCC started the year with 300. 10 a month annualized means 3% a month or 33% annually.

HCC is on line to break the 400 mark by Dec-Jan. IMHO, even if the 33%+ growth drops to 25%, HCC will come out way ahead as the price increase is 20%+.

Given the price point HCC sells at compared to the DC market, it has a decent amount of room to increase the prices. In the airline industry, a price increase can kill you as the competitor can choose to keep it the same effectively sapping the sales.

Your example would be better suited for a club like ER. If they choose to increase there prices by 150-200K overnight, Quintess, UE and Lusso stand to gain.

Given where the industry is today, these prices are never coming back. the existing ones will never lower it and new ones cannot operate at that level as "first entrant" option does not exist anymore.

My recommendation would be to join before any new price increase.

pwrshift

Bourne, perhaps my figures are wrong and I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't HCC have a 50 member increase before the last increase and reached 350 members. If they only grew to 360 in the next six months up to this increase it would seem a dramatic slow down to me comparatively.

But if they are selling 10 per month, it might indicate a good growth.

I'm pretty sure all you members are anxious to see more properties added to the roster and want to see as many members join as possible to accomplish that, but if there's a slowdown in people signing up won't HCC already slow expansion slow down even more?

Bourne

HCC was close to 280+ around this time...
October 2007 Price Increase
High Country Club:

300 on Jan 08
January 2008 Member Newsletter
http://www.highcountryclub.com/pdf/n...newsletter.pdf
300 Member Milestone
High Country Club is proud to announce that we finished 2007
with over 300 Members. In addition, our portfolio grew to 35
properties in 29 destinations.


330 by May 08
From an email sent out to members...
...
With over 330 members actively using the club properties, we feel that nobody is more qualified to sell the value of High Country Club than current members. That’s why we are doubling our current member referral program for a limited time.
...

350 by June 08
Based on my conversation with HCC around the time the latest referrals were introduced, HCC had 350.

360 by July 08
Based on the last post by a member in this regard, Heath had communicated that HCC is slated to pass the 360 mark by the end of the month. i.e. July 2008.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since Oct of last year, HCC has consistently added an average of 10 members per month and increased the membership pricing two times. The spike in membership additions have been around the time of price increase.

Hence the statement that I have repeated many times. Their price increases are not making a negative impact on growth because of the lack of competition in the market segement HCC sells to.

Why leave money on the table if a prospective member is willing to pay for it.

caribbeansun

Based on my phone call with Dan their CFO, HCC added 43 members between Jan 1-May 31/08 of which 9 where private members, this was much higher %age of private members/new members than in the past year. He indicated that they had added 136 people during the 2007 year.

Their most popular memberships are in this order (again, according to the CFO):

- Affiliate
- Associate
- Private
- Companion