Timeshare needs to be regulated

How do you know it is timeshare which the pushy salesperson is trying to sell you?

Simple – because he or she swears on their grandmother’s grave that “this is not timeshare”.

And how many of you have been lured to presentations, then found the pressure turned up to get you to sign?

How many of you feel almost obligated, seeing as you accepted their “free gift” of a “mid-week break” at a “bush resort”?

All of those unacceptable – and borderline unethical, never mind possibly also illegal – practices have been commonplace in the South African timeshare industry for years, earning it a bad name, which has been wholly justified.

That way of doing business should long ago have been buried – so it is disturbing that it has been almost two years since the National Consumer Commission (NCC) finalised its report on the timeshare sector.

Had action be taken on the raft of recommendations flowing from the report, many of those dodgy practices would have been outlawed.

Apparently, the report of the NCC investigation has been “lost” after the organisation’s website got hacked.

This is not to say many people have not benefited over the decades from the concept of timeshare, which helps people fund a regular annual holiday – in the same place or at another – via a points swap.

Timeshare helps people, in theory at least, to keep their vacation costs predictable over a long period – so it has an important role to play in our tourism sector.

Perhaps dealing with an issue which might be regarded as a “rich people’s problem” is not a priority for the government – although an unregulated cowboy business does nothing for the international image of a country.

It’s time there was certainty – and enforceable rules – in timeshare.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.