Riviera, Disneyland Hotel Help Boost Overall Direct Sales in January 2024

[maui22]

https://dvcnews.com/dvc-program-men...lp-boost-overall-direct-sales-in-january-2024

Wil Lovato wrote...

In January 2024, 138,609 Disney Vacation Club points were sold for the 11 DVC resorts located at World Disney World and The Villas at Disneyland Hotel. January’s sales total was over 40,000 points more than in December 2023 and over 28,000 points more than a year ago in January 2023. In was the best sales for the month of January since 2020, when 222,185 points were sold in advance of the COVID-19 pandemic.

January 2024 sales benefited from Disney’s Riviera Resort having its best month since April 2022. Disneyland Hotel rebounded in January, selling 11,274 more points than it did in December 2023. Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort also helped boost sales by selling 5,000 points, its best month since April 2022. The Villas at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort, which averaged over 78,000 points a month in 2023, sold only 2,265 points in January.

Several large point purchases were made in January. The largest single deed was a 1,300-point Riviera deed, followed by an 800-point Riviera deed. The largest cumulative purchase was for 2,400 Riviera points, split evenly between four 600-point deeds.

Sales for The Cabins at Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort opened to existing DVC members on February 1, 2024. It will take another two or three weeks after that for the first deeds to be filed and recorded with the Orange County Comptroller, with the direct sales report for February 2024 offering the first glimpse of sales for DVC’s newest property.

Disney’s Riviera Resort — In January, Riviera sold 93,025 points, its best month since April 2022 and far better than the 48,429 points it averaged a month during 2023. Disney has now sold 4,125,328 points, about 61.2% of the resort’s 6,739,966 points. Since sales started in April 2019 the resort has averaged 71,893 points a month. If Riviera were to maintain that sales pace it would take it 35 months before it is completely sold out.

Disney is still selling Fixed Week deeds for Riviera. In January one such deed was sold for a standard view studio for Week #50. Disney has sold 118 Fixed Week deeds for the resort.

On December 15, 2023, Disney declared another 32 vacation homes for the Riviera’s DVC inventory. The resort now has 256 of its 341 vacation homes included in its DVC inventory. There are still 85 vacation homes that have not yet been declared and are under the control of Disney. The declared inventory accounts for 5,081,401 points, or 75.4% of the resort’s total points.

The Villas at Disneyland Hotel — In January, 28,079 points were sold for Disneyland Hotel, up from the 16,805 points that it sold in December 2023. January’s total is the second lowest monthly total since sales started in May 2023. However, the 67.1% jump in point sales month over month may signal that sales for Disneyland Hotel have, at least, stabilized.

Disney has now sold 597,101 points since sales were first recorded in May 2023. About 18.3% of the resort’s estimated 3,255,992 total points have been sold to the public.

Because the data available from the Orange County (California) Clerk-Recorder’s Office is limited, it is not possible to track some items such as Fixed Week sales. Even the exact number of points sold cannot be measured directly; instead, the number of points can only be estimated based on the Transfer Tax paid on each deed.

The sales data includes all 11 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 Californian Hotel. The data is compiled from deeds filed by Disney Vacation Development and recorded with the Orange County (FL) Comptroller, the Indian River County (FL) Clerk of Court, and the Beaufort County (SC) Register of Deeds. Thanks to Chris from ********** for assisting in the compilation of the sales data.

 

[Sandisw]

Over 90k for RIV…I’d say DVd had to be pretty happy with that.

 

[MerlinandtheMouse]

Over 90k for RIV…I’d say DVd had to be pretty happy with that.

A looming price increase can do the same thing as a good incentive, I know I had serious FOMO about it but don’t want to buy more points until we hear more about the Poly tower.

Just goes to show if they really want to move RIV (or any resort, really) all they have to do is set the right price…or threaten to increase it. It’s definitely an active choice to keep RIV sales “slow” and steady.

I have a feeling they’re going to approach the tower similarly- start it at least $239/pt and not overly incentivize it. I think It’s going to sell well regardless of restrictions (or no restrictions) or buy-in price and even if it has slower sales, this resort will likely sell pretty well on cash for at least the first few years.

 

[supercarrie]

Here I am hoping for slower sales in February with the hope it leads to a decent sale of some kind prior to fall/winter and Poly 2.0. We'll see!

With the higher prices that kicked in during February and CFW coming online, it will be interesting to see how that affects Riviera's sales.

I toured Riviera in January and will say it was much more high pressure than tours from a few years back. Lots of urging to "buy now" because of the higher prices coming in, quite a few follow up calls, texts and emails expressing such urgency, etc. I also had a couple emails from my guide in CA reminding me to tell the WDW guide that I was "already covered" by a guide. Felt like a tug of war, which was a massive turnoff from purchasing. It really soured the Riviera tour, so much so I walked away with a strong dislike for the resort (I think more to do with their salespeople than the resort itself).

We ended up purchasing a resale BLT contract and deciding to wait for Poly 2.0 (or another product) for direct points for a number of reasons, but the pushy salespeople definitely didn't help their case.

Looking at these numbers, I suppose they don't have much incentive to change things immediately, though.

 

[BrianLo]

Thus we reopen the Riviera can of worms once more.

Maybe, just maybe, it is in fact popular: not held back by restrictions and merely was just held back by other resorts on offer / the pandemic?

I know the popular take was Poly would most certainly sell through before it, but that seems highly dubious. RIV has less than 2.5 million points they can sell, likely the 'sold out' declaration will come around 2.3 or so. Poly will have 4+ million points and RIV still has a few more months head start. Poly would need to basically maintain a 2:1 sales pace to overtake RIV timeline wise, after its first few months, which are generally going to be on the bigger end of things.

 

[HIRyeDVC]

And here I thought Disney was struggling to move its direct inventory when direct sales are doing just fine at these high prices.

 

[SpicyMcHaggis]

I’ve been hoping that we will see a big sale prior to poly 2 going live but no reason for that if sales stay high. Mostly interested in Riv at all due to it being an Epcot area resort with longer life than 2042, but not at these prices and point charts.

 

[Kayakc]

Just goes to show you that the people on the inside are better informed than the people on the blogs.

 

[Stank]

Eh, I’d still think Poly 2 gets a good sale. You had stock market euphoria up until a week ago. You had DVC Direct headline price increases pushing people to panic buy.

There are massive air pockets in the economy. Ai ain’t what people think it is. Globs of layoffs that oddly aren’t showing up in bean counters’ math formulas.

2,000+ resale contracts sustained, no ROFR, dining reservations wide open, 5 Direct properties actively being sold once Poly 2 rolls out….it’s going to be like a Bounty paper towel trying to mop up a gym floor after a pipe burst. Too much supply vs. demand. Not enough paper towels to mop up the sheer volume of points.

Markets and confidence being held together with Ai putty.

 

[RoseGold]

And here I thought Disney was struggling to move its direct inventory when direct sales are doing just fine at these high prices.

Direct sales aren't doing fine. They were already sitting on millions of points of RIV and Aulani. They are adding millions more points this year in the Trailers and presumably many, many millions in Poly2.

Selling 100-150K points a month while bringing on millions a year means the math is not mathing.

 

[MarkNC2Disney]

What’s the “ideal” or typical sellout timeframe for a new resort? How long did it take AKV, BLT, Poly, CC, etc?

 

[Stank]

Direct sales aren't doing fine. They were already sitting on millions of points of RIV and Aulani. They are adding millions more points this year in the Trailers and presumably many, many millions in Poly2.

Selling 100-150K points a month while bringing on millions a year means the math is not mathing.

Exactly. All preceding months show sluggish sales.


And VDH is barely moving.

 

[DanCali]

I toured Riviera in January and will say it was much more high pressure than tours from a few years back. Lots of urging to "buy now" because of the higher prices coming in, quite a few follow up calls, texts and emails expressing such urgency, etc.

I got the same treatment at a different resort - no mention of Cabins at all, just why I have to buy Riviera, and why it has to happen now (multiple reasons were suggested). Even after I said I'm highly unlikely to buy a resort with the resale restrictions and the conversation switched to Poly/Poly2, the follow up emails were on Riviera. Seems like they're definitely pushing it hard before Poly2 sales start.

 

[Sandisw]

Direct sales aren't doing fine. They were already sitting on millions of points of RIV and Aulani. They are adding millions more points this year in the Trailers and presumably many, many millions in Poly2.

Selling 100-150K points a month while bringing on millions a year means the math is not mathing.

The counter to this is that DVD must be okay with how things have happened since the pandemic as it had brought on three new projects, with two opening this year that were not in play before that.

So, I’d say that whatever goals they have may not be what some think they are or should be?

All we know at this point is that RIV had a good month and helped to bring total sales about that 130k mark.

 

[BrianLo]

Exactly. All preceding months show sluggish sales.


And VDH is barely moving.

2023 was the best sales year since 2011.

There’s lots of reasons why, but it’s kind of contrary to what people are claiming, total sales are not sluggish, they are historically quite strong.

2024 will of course benefit from two product launches and Rivieria seems to be holding up.

I’d say this is the primary reason incentives aren’t great. Sales are in fact not sluggish and they don’t feel they need discounting to improve the numbers.

Now without product launches presumably for at least 2025, maybe we see deeper incentives then.

 

[maui22]

How does it compare to the year 2009? DVD/DVC opened the following (more than 13 million points of inventory):

• Kidani - 5.6 million points
• THV - 0.9 million points
• BLT - 5.7 million points
• VGC - 1.14 million points

2007-2009 was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

If Disney/DVD decides they want to move inventory and generate cash quickly, it's pretty easy to change pricing/incentives. Happened in 2009-2010. Another example is VGF summer sale.

 

[Stank]

2023 was the best sales year since 2011.

There’s lots of reasons why, but it’s kind of contrary to what people are claiming, total sales are not sluggish, they are historically quite strong.

2024 will of course benefit from two product launches and Rivieria seems to be holding up.

I’d say this is the primary reason incentives aren’t great. Sales are in fact not sluggish and they don’t feel they need discounting to improve the numbers.

Now without product launches presumably for at least 2025, maybe we see deeper incentives

Best sales numbers in 13 years….

Yet the properties will sit for sale for years to come. Riviera approaching half a decade on the market. VDH is sluggish. Cabins will be glacial.

Basically, VGF was a gift. Wrapped into the old association, sell it slightly above resale after resale has been falling for 2+ years, points moved fast. With a resort not resale resort restricted like VDH, RIV, Cabins, etc.

 

[HIRyeDVC]

Direct sales aren't doing fine. They were already sitting on millions of points of RIV and Aulani. They are adding millions more points this year in the Trailers and presumably many, many millions in Poly2.

Selling 100-150K points a month while bringing on millions a year means the math is not mathing.

Doesn't matter what you or I believe. It's what the Disney executives believe. And based on these numbers, they probably believe sales are doing fine, hence the meager current direct incentives. They must be ok with the current pricing and sales rate. And when Poly2 comes out, they will be celebrating the gangbuster sales and popularity of DVC direct! It's not how I see it but I don't think it matters to DVD.

 

[BrianLo]

Best sales numbers in 13 years….

Yet the properties will sit for sale for years to come. Riviera approaching half a decade on the market. VDH is sluggish. Cabins will be glacial.

Basically, VGF was a gift. Wrapped into the old association, sell it slightly above resale after resale has been falling for 2+ years, points moved fast. With a resort not resale resort restricted like VDH, RIV, Cabins, etc.

And do you want to know what sold worse then them all? VGC.

The real irony is this January is actually stronger than last and yet VGF isn’t for sale. So I still have a hard time following why the sales are ‘sluggish’.

2023 was propped up with a VGF clearance sale AND the VDH launch, with Riviera humming in the background. VDH is definitely currently quite sluggish, but it has a terrible price to match.

I know everyone wants to make it about ‘restrictions’, but Rivieria is selling well currently in the near absence of incentives. That’s the surprising data. If it doesn’t meet their objectives, deeper incentives will surely follow - and yet they aren’t so far.

VGF had a fire sale because it wasn’t selling well enough on the other hand, then hilariously I think DVD was caught off guard and didn’t expect it to go so quickly. But all the more reason price (and expectancy) really can drive demand.

 

[RichVIII]

Doesn't matter what you or I believe. It's what the Disney executives believe. And based on these numbers, they probably believe sales are doing fine, hence the meager current direct incentives. They must be ok with the current pricing and sales rate. And when Poly2 comes out, they will be celebrating the gangbuster sales and popularity of DVC direct! It's not how I see it but I don't think it matters to DVD.

Agree. They also have the data from the VGF sale this summer to show what levers and buttons (price) to dial in to move the sales needle If/when they need or want to. And if people are willing to meet them at the higher prices (and most agree they are good filling the rooms with cash) it seems silly to offer many incentives.