Abercrombie & Kent to Raise Prices?

In an encouraging bright spot for the industry -- though not necessarily for prospective members -- Abercrombie & Kent is set on boosting its initial deposit requirements for membership by $10,000 to $23,000 next month.

The move still prices membership plans well below their original peak prices.

Let's hope the industry isn't repeating mistakes of its past. During the growth days of the industry, clubs routinely inched their initiation prices higher. It was a productive tactic in smoking out those straddling the fence in terms of ownership. It led to a bubble that came crashing down when the real estate market itself cratered.

The upside here is that even if this is a way to prompt interested leads into joining before the deadline, one would assume that there are enough destination club tire kickers sniffing around A&K to prompt the club to go through with the slight increase.

Ultimate Escapes is Delisted

Well, Ultimate Escapes' tenure on a major stock exchanged ended before it really had much of a chance to get started.

After failing to complete a secondary offering to meet the exchange's listing requirements the country's second largest destination club succumbed to the delisting process.

You won't find the stock under the old UEI ticker symbol anymore. It now trades on the OTC Bulleting Board as ULEI -- though you may have to punch it in as ULEI.OB on some stock quote services including Yahoo! Finance.

Where does UE go from here? The delisting is humbling. It will have to get by without the money it was planning to raise. Still, life -- and luxury vacations -- go on. The stock may have hit a new low of $1.85 today, making it that much harder to use its stock as legal tender to snap up a smaller club or possibly buy new properties, but the club lives on to fight a new day.

Where Art Thou DestinationClubForums.com?

For over a week, visitors to DestinationClubForums.com have come across this simple placeholder:

Since 2007, Destination Club Forums has been the #1 resource for independent information about the Destination Club industry and Destination Clubs such as:

Abercrombie & Kent Residence Club
Distinctive Holiday Homes
Equity Estates
Exclusive Resorts
Hideaways Club
M Private Residences
The Markers Destination Club
Oyster Circle
Quintess, LRW
The Ritz-Carlton Destination Club
Ultimate Escapes
Now we're working to bring you an exciting upgrade that will provide even more news, information, and insights into Destination Clubs — a fantastic way to experience the very best in luxury vacationing.

We greatly appreciate your patience while we prepare for these changes as we take our site to a whole new level in 2010!

Please check back in the near future while we work out all of the exciting details.

Is the once popular message board -- the only dedicated online forum for the destinaiton club industry -- going away? Is it being updated? Is there an ownership change?

I won't speculate, but I will say that the industry clearly needs a forum to encourage the open exchange of ideas and experiences. The industry itself may only have thousands of members, but once you consider family members and friends that travel with members, this is an industry that is enjoyed by tens of thousands -- and possibly even hundreds of thousands -- of vacationers.

Let's hope that DestinationClubForums.com comes back up soon and with the same open spirit for debate that the industry needs to keep it honest.

Ultimate Escapes (Amex: UEI) Goes Public

It's official. Ultimate Escapes (Amex: UEI) became the first destination club to go public, as a result of a reverse IPO through Secure America. The club began trading under its new ticker symbol -- UEI -- this morning.

If you're waiting for confetti and champagne bottles to pop, keep waiting. Luxury travel is still out of favor, and the country's second largest destination club only managed to trade a scant 200 shares today.

Volume may be tight over the next few days, since many of the Secure America investors that didn't cash out are actually Ultimate Escapes member who have committed to hold the new shares through at least November 30, 2009 in order to convert their Redemption Assurance Plan balances into restricted shares.

What will be possible with Ultimate Escapes as a public company? The company plans to use its equity-raising potential as a way to acquire distressed clubs, expand overseas, and offer new club products.