RCI and the Pestana Group celebrate partnership's silver anniversary

Resort Properties, the Pestana Group, Club Praia Da Oura (CPO, now part of the Petchey Leisure Group), and Club La Costa (CLC) each celebrate a 25-year relationship with RCI EMEAI this year.

Pestana Hotels and Resorts pioneered mixed-use (hotel and timeshare operation working together in one property) in Europe when it launched timeshare with 150 rooms at its Carlton Madeira Hotel in Portugal in 1985. Today Pestana welcomes an average of 1,500 new owner families each year. RCI will be celebrating the exact date of their 25^th anniversary with Pestana at ARDA and will be marking the occasion with a special presentation at the event.

Resort Properties’ Palm Beach Club in Tenerife was opened 25 years ago when the resort earned the distinction of becoming the fastest-selling timeshare resort in the world.

CLC was founded with the purchase of 10 apartments at Las Farolas on the Costa del Sol and it now has sales operations in the UK, Spain, Tenerife, Turkey and Portugal conducting close to 100,000 sales presentations annually. CLC is an innovator, launching a yacht club in 2006, and its first foray into the Turkish market, Apollonium Club La Costa Spa & Beach Resort, will be the company’s 18^th affiliation with RCI.

Jack Petchey OBE (Order of the British Empire) is one of the founding fathers of the timeshare industry and from its CPO beginnings, Petchey Leisure now has 10 owned and managed resorts as well as inventory in 24 other properties, making it one of the first timeshare businesses to expand outside its home territory by quickly extending its owned property portfolio to Spain, Portugal, Tenerife and the UK.

Jonathan Back, managing director, RCI EMEAI, said: "All our developers have succeeded in this business by putting customer service first.

"The key to RCI’s success is its relationships with our resort developer partners, the people responsible for our unrivalled portfolio of vacation resorts. We have fantastically strong relationships based on a commitment to excellence and a shared focus on customer service.

"In business there is nothing as rare or as valuable as a trusted relationship which endures over time and I’m delighted that we will be seeing so many of our valued business partners at ARDA and rightly celebrating the longevity and strength of our relationships."

Shown right: Peter Booth of Pestana receives an RCI 25-Year Anniversary tribute from Isabel Santos of RCI, Portugal, at the 2010 ARDA Convention. Celebrating the company milestone with them are, from left, Sergio Carmi of Pestana Brazil, RCI’s Jonathan Back, Geoff Ballotti and Dimitris Manikis.