Desties

I had noticed a lack of DC print advertising in recent months. Most of the ads that I have seen are usually HCC, Lusso, and UR online campaigns.

However, over the past week, ER has been taking out full-page color ads in The Wall Street Journal. The same ad has run 3-4 times over the past week. I'm not sure if I have a theory -- positive or negative -- as to why ER is suddenly ramping up the marketing spend, though I'm assuming that the waiting list has been whittled down to the point where prospective members are now being taken in quicker.

If not, why spend all of this ad money to disappoint potential members with a velvet rope?

LTTravel

I met a new ER member on my last vacation at Grand Cayman. He was crazy (happy) about joining ER. He never would have expected that his teenage kids would be playing with Miley Cyrus on vacation and take photos with her, race her in a golf cart and have bragging rights when they get back home. He couldn't stop describing what a great vacation he had and how wonderful the acommodations were. He was talking to people at the Ritz, at the restaurants, at the airports, everywhere about how happy he was with joining. He was ready to upgrade his membership and was wondering what he was going to do with his vacation home in Naples.
Though it is possible that the ER's waiting list may have dwindled and the economy has effected them as much as it has probably effected all the DC's, I wouldn't be worried too much about ER. Remember, their waiting list was as large as some other clubs total membership.

DC4MS

pwrshift

You advertise today for tomorrow.

Jack

i dont believe there is a real waiting list to get in. a friend of mine was interested in joining and the rep never said anything about a waiting list in fact he said he could guarantee his first reservation

Bourne

There was a waiting list a month back. As I understand, that list has been exhausted.

ER may be ramping up their ad campaign to get more members to join as the wait list is empty.

LTTravel

Their wait list was around 150 in January, but full member equivalents was probably around 70, So that means just 10 or 11 more homes to eat up that waiting list. In the last month alone they have added over 15 homes and several Once in a Lifetimes. They have several other developments in the pipeline that are coming up and probably over 100 in the next 18 months. So only if they sign up more than 700 more members (full member equivalents but probably around 1500 new members) in the next 18 months will they have a new waiting list. Several of the new developments were planned a while ago and are only now coming on line. The Arrabelle in Vail just went on line. Originally around $3million, despite the real estate problems, these are going for over $4 million now. I think even Oprah bought one there.