The news at Diamond Resorts has been relatively quiet since Apollo Global took over the helm. Business has been ticking along as usual until Friday past when all sales and concierge staff arrived at work for their usual Friday routine, all were summoned to meetings at various locations around Europe. The meetings were all the same; consisting of the upcoming changes to the group, to the disappointment of as many as 1000 employees throughout Europe.
With only 7 weeks until Christmas, the staff at more than 15 European locations have been told to clear out their desks and prepare for the closure of the offices. All customer facing sales staff were asked to leave the premises straight after the meeting. The office staff such as concierge, contracts and marketing have been requested to work out their notice of 15 days on a reduced hourly contract.
One would imagine that the office staff have been kept on to wrap up any final paperwork on contracts written in the past few weeks. They will then have to leave 5 weeks before Christmas. Leaving them at a loose end at an unfortunate time of year. There has been a lot of speculation as to why Apollo would have done this. The explanation that was given to the staff, is that Europe had targets to keep to; so as to continue with their sales floors in Europe. It was originally expected to be measured over a 2-year window, however, there has not even been a full year since the takeover and there have been drastic measures taken.
The restructure of the company was announced to all members of Diamond by a mail shot, sent out two days previous to the group announcing it to their staff. It has been promised that the standard of quality and service will not change in respect of recent staff dismissals, and that business will continue as usual, in fact there are great future proposals on the horizon for the resorts worldwide.
Diamond have also promised their members that this will not limit them from upgrading, or purchasing additional points to continue enjoying their timeshare experience to the full. They have said that there will be teams dedicated to the sale of these and the service should remain the same. One has to wonder how the sales can continue as normal when there has been such a large upheaval so quickly.
We will just have to sit tight and see what they do next. There may be outsourcing to call centres or third parties to manage their continuing sales in Europe, or they may all be lumped together with American business. We at the TCA would love to hear from any Diamond members that are in any of the European resorts this week where all the disruption has taken place to hear first-hand what the knock on effect has been within the resorts.
For more information regarding this article or assistance in any other timeshare related issues please contact the TCA on 01908 881058 or email: info@TimeshareConsumerAssociation.org.uk