After having a very good sales month in March, it is not surprising that direct sales of Disney Vacation Club points slipped in April 2011. A total of 238,268 points were sold directly by Disney Vacation Development (DVD), a drop of about 9.3% compared to the previous month. Despite the slight drop sales, April 2011 was the second best month for sales since at least July 2010.
The sales data includes all seven DVC resorts at Walt Disney World, as well as Disney’s Vero Beach Resort and Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort. Point sales data is not available for the Villas at Disney’s Grand California Hotel or for Aulani, a Disney Resort and Spa. The data is compiled from deeds filed by DVD and recorded with the Orange County (FL) Comptroller, the Indian River County (FL) Clerk of Court, and the Beaufort County (SC) Register of Deeds.
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Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort - Direct point sales at BLT dropped to 135,375 points in April, about 16.7% less than the previous month. However, BLT still outsold Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa by more than a two-to-one margin and Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas by about a four-to-one margin.
As of April 30, 2011, about 84.4% of BLT’s estimated 5.7 million points have been sold. Even if sales at BLT continue to slow in the coming months -- which might happen since its base price is scheduled to increase in June to $140 a point -- BLT should be sold out before the end of 2011. It is also possible that DVD may start experiencing shortages of points for some Use Years by late Summer.
In April, it appears that DVD was offering the December Use Year to new buyers who do not specifically request a different UY. The February UY remains the most dominant UY at BLT, accounting for well over a third of BLT’s total points. (See Distribution of DVC Points by Use Year.)
DVD has declared 96.04% of BLT for the DVC inventory, which means that Members can book up to 96.04% of the resort using points on any given Use Day. It is anticipated that the two remaining Grand Villas and eight two-bedroom villas should be declared for the DVC inventory within the next month or two.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas - After experiencing increasing point sales for four consecutive months, AKV saw a decline in April. It sold 33,773 points for the month, which was 23,677 points less than the previous month. Although April’s downturn might just be an aberration in an otherwise upward sales trend, it will be interesting to see how DVD markets AKV as BLT sales wind down.
DVD has declared 70.34% of AKV for the DVC inventory and has sold about 62% of its points. As of April 30, 2011, AKV had about 590,000 points that have been declared but unsold. Given the current rate of sales, there is little need for DVD to declare more AKV Units for the DVC inventory at this time.
Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa - With its current base price of $99 a point, SSR is cheaper than the other three DVC resorts that are actively being marketed at this time. Thus, it is not surprising that SSR sold 61,285 points in April 2011, more than it has sold since before July 2010. It is interesting that where AKV’s sales decreased by 23,677 points in April compared to March, SSR sales increased by 23,911 points.
In January 2009, SSR was considered to be “sold out.” Then, DVD declared half of the 60 TreeHouse Villas (THV) and added 452,625 points to the DVC inventory. It is difficult to guess when DVD might declare the remaining 30 THVs for the DVC inventory. DVD has only 170,930 points left to sell from the original THV declaration, which normally justifies another declaration. However, it continues to sell points from SSR Units that were declared before 2009 -- 193,914 points just since July 2010 -- and it is unknown how many points remain unsold in these Units. Until it exhausts its supply of points from these pre-2009 declared Units, DVD may not need to declare the second half of the THVs for the DVC inventory.
