In the next three months, Exclusive Resorts will release 70 new homes, bringing their portfolio to 370 homes in 35 destinations, more than any other destination club. (Read a recent story about their development plans here.)

Last week, we chatted with Michael Beindorff, COO of Exclusive Resorts (photo, right), who talked about the club’s “disciplined activation process” when bringing on the 400+ new members who joined this summer.

Exclusive Resorts launches most of its homes in Q4 and Q1 each year since occupancy is at its highest during the holiday season and early spring. At any point in time, the club expects about 65-70% occupancy, which means roughly one-third of their homes will be available for space available reservation.

The occupancy figure is an important metric since it factors both the member-to-home ratio and the number of days usage by members. Depending on the plan, Exclusive Resorts members have 15, 25, or 45 days of usage available (based on current Affiliate, Executive, and Elite programs, respectively). Beindorff provided Helium Report access to an internal member communication which explains the club’s shift towards occupancy as a metric:

As a result, while we continue to honor the 6:1 ratio, we feel that its usefulness in measuring residence availability has declined. Instead, we have begun to use a more sophisticated model that takes into account aggregate availability…

Beindorff also stated the influx of new members will not impact this holiday season. The club “works hard to manage expectations” and new members join with the understanding that holiday reservations cannot be booked within their first 6 months of membership. With the advanced reservation systems of destination clubs, the policy is not unusual since members who joined prior to this summer would have already booked their holiday travel.

In our Decision Guide to Destination clubs, we explain the challenges of managing holiday reservations and the shortfalls of the member-to-home ratio. Click here to download a free copy of the guide.