Aulani "sold-out" for May 2013?

[tomandrobin]

Yep, in targeting Japan for foreign time share sales, Disney picked a winner.

All nice links, but not a single one addresses the question I pose to you or to the OP original question.

Why do you think Disney's market plan to Japanese Citizens is not working? Understanding Japanese obsession with Disney and Hawaii makes Aulani a perfect fit.

So again, I will ask you - What sales data do you have to back-up your claim?

 

[rapunzel21]

There is a great presence of Japanese visitors in Waikiki, and also at a major resort where I work. The yen has been maintaining its strength for many months now and there's no reason to believe an increase in Far East visitor spending will not have an effect in the Ko Olina/Aulani area whether it is by purchases of DVC ownership or otherwise.

Additionally, a good friend of mine who works for DVC out of Aulani has told me that a good percentage of their sales is from the local market, not overseas. I have not once thought Aulani was geared to be catered to the Far East market, and I still maintain that opinion to date.

 

[LoriKutchey]

We booked a 2 bedroom there last may at the 7 month mark and every view was available to us. We did not stay there during Golden week however. So if your not there at that time I would not give up hope!

 

[CandyMandy]

Why do you think Disney's market plan to Japanese Citizens is not working?

What sales data do you have to back-up your claim?

Nice try, you know sales data is not public. If it was, you would have already tried to present data to prove Japanese buyers are flocking to the Aulani sales office with open checkbooks.

What we do know - from continual discussion on this board - is that outside wasteland rooms and times (like a dumpster view in mid-October) it is virtually impossible for DVC members who don't own at Aulani to get anything there at 7 months. That's because there is so little available DVC inventory due to very little owner held space.

Bottom line: Aulani is basically a bust with the core, dominant base of DVC prospects and members (eastern and northeastern U.S.) It's just too far away and not attached to a park complex. So Disney is left trying to pitch it to westerners and a supposed huge segment of supposed deep-pocket Japanese who want to vacation regularly in the same place.

Problem with the latter target market (per the links in my prior post) is it's not 1985 anymore.

 

[CandyMandy]

As the Japanese recover from the earthquake, the sales at Aulani have also improved to Japanese visitors.

Proof, numbers?

JTB Hawaii President Keiichi Tsujino tells the Honolulu Star-Advertiser travel for the string of national holidays in Japan known as "Golden Week," fared better than last year

Classic chamber of commerce spin, noteworthy that no specific % increase was mentioned. Tourism to Hawaii from Japan last year was a disaster because of the lingering effects of the March disaster. Saying it fared "better" in 2012 is like saying a batter who struck out at every time up at the plate in game 1 fared "better" in game 2 because he at least connected with the ball for a pop fly out.

 

[tomandrobin]

Nice try, you know sales data is not public. If it was, you would have already tried to present data to prove Japanese buyers are flocking to the Aulani sales office with open checkbooks.

Bottom line: Aulani is basically a bust with the core, dominant base of DVC prospects and members (eastern and northeastern U.S.) It's just too far away and not attached to a park complex. So Disney is left trying to pitch it to westerners and a supposed huge segment of supposed deep-pocket Japanese who want to vacation regularly in the same place.

See....I post from facts, you post from misinformed opinions, posted by others - all with no facts.

Sales data is posted online, you just need to look for them.....

Here is a link for Aulani Sales for the first week of May 2012. There were 148 contracts recorded. Looks like about 1/3 were Japanese in origin, assuming names like Natsumi Otawa are Japanese citizens.

The same time period in May of 2011, there were 86 sales at Aulani

First week in April 2012 131 sales

First week in April 2011 206 sales

First week in March 2012 268 sales

First week in March 2011 37 sales

You'll notice that there were more Japanese owners in 2012 vs 2011 as a percentage.

Also, there are 127 million people living in Japan. The population of the US East Coast (Maine-Florida) is 112 Million people. The US East coast was/is the largest market area for DVC, followed by the Chicago Area (10 million people). This target Market supports 9 DVC resorts.

 

[tomandrobin]

From 5/1/12-5/23-12, 584 contracts were sold at Aulani.

April 2012 - 584 contracts
March 2012 - 503 contracts
February 2012 - 288 contracts
January 2012 - 416 contracts

April 2011 - 327
March 2011 - 244
February 2011 - 326
January 2011 - 355

Looks like a trend to me. We do not know the number of points, but we do know that these are new purchases of at least 160 points.

For comparison sake, in April 2012 - AKV had 1021 sales of 177,464 points. (avg of 173 points per sale)

 

[tomandrobin]

Proof, numbers?


Classic chamber of commerce spin, noteworthy that no specific % increase was mentioned. Tourism to Hawaii from Japan last year was a disaster because of the lingering effects of the March disaster. Saying it fared "better" in 2012 is like saying a batter who struck out at every time up at the plate in game 1 fared "better" in game 2 because he at least connected with the ball for a pop fly out.

So there is your proof.

The chamber of commerce did give a percentage. Hawaii tourism has been struggling since the start of the recession, not limited to just Japanese tourism.

Unlike you, I have continually given you facts and numbers to back my posts. You keep posting gibberish that is either opinion based, rumored based or projecting on aging demographics in 20 years. We are talking about a large and populous country, not a town in Illinois.

 

[htmlkid]

From 5/1/12-5/23-12, 584 contracts were sold at Aulani.

April 2012 - 584 contracts
March 2012 - 503 contracts
February 2012 - 288 contracts
January 2012 - 416 contracts

April 2011 - 327
March 2011 - 244
February 2011 - 326
January 2011 - 355

Looks like a trend to me. We do not know the number of points, but we do know that these are new purchases of at least 160 points.

For comparison sake, in April 2012 - AKV had 1021 sales of 177,464 points. (avg of 173 points per sale)

Tom you wouldn't happen to know the total number of points available at Aulani would you???

 

[tomandrobin]

Tom you wouldn't happen to know the total number of points available at Aulani would you???

Off the top of my head, I think 11.5 million points

BLT 5.7 million
AKV 7.4 million
SSR 14.0 million

 

[Iceman93]

This is my first foray into the DVC boards, having just become a member two days ago. It was during an absolutely amazing stay at Aulani that was so wonderful we just had to lock in the ability to keep going for the next 50 years. We've looked at DVC before (we are truly the ideal market--nearly all of our vacations are Disney), but didn't take the plunge until Aulani stole our hearts.

That being said, my guess from last week is that 25-40% of the guests are Japanese. The resort definitely caters to them--all menus and signage, for example are bilingual (and the second language isn't Spanish like it is here in SoCal). Breakfast features a "Japanese breakfast" and there is an Asian station at the buffet. There is a chapel next to the resort that featured a steady stream of lavish Japanese weddings.

Having traveled to Japan twice (with stops at TDR, of course), and with a wife who had a college roomate from Japan, I'm at least passingly familiar with Japanese culture and habits. I do know that prices at Aulani (which often get panned online for being high, from the room rates to the food prices) seemed rather reasonable to me and would be seen as a serious bargain to the typical middle-class Japanese tourist. I suspect that they can do a fabulous, over-the-top destination wedding at Aulani for the same price or less than a run-of-the-mill wedding back home.

Also, there was about as much space at the HNL airport allocated to the Asian airlines as to the American ones. We even saw United and Delta flights going to Japan (and to second-tier cities like Kyoto and ***uoka, not just Tokyo), in addition to all the JAL, Asiana, etc.

I guess the bottom line is that, despite what the demographic trends may say about the recent past and forecast into the future, my admittedly limited personal experience is that Disney is smiling all the way to the bank with the money they're getting from the Japanese market at Aulani.

 

[CandyMandy]

Unlike you, I have continually given you facts and numbers to back my posts.

No, you post aggregated sales figures and append superficial assessments that "a lot" of said sales are coming from buyers with supposed Japanese sounding surnames. As opposed to my prior posts with hard numbers howing that we are not in the boom Japanese-mass-travel-to-Hawaii-economy-of-the-past some Disney apologists insist never slowed down. Yes, we all know the recession "ended" way back in 2009 and that happy days are here again... And yes, let's ignore the fact that everyone who has been on a DCL cruise in the past year hasn't had to withstand an unprecedented, withering and frankly ugly level of sales-pitch-a-rama for Aulani from clearly stressed DVC sales reps.....

You keep posting gibberish

Translation: you just called the

So let's close with some words of wisdom from another related thread (emphasis added to relevant highlights):

My wife has travelled to Hawaii extensively for work, and she is a tourism "expert" due to the nature of her work.
Indeed she thinks their focus was on the Japanese markets, and opening so close to the tsunami surely has had an affect. However, she also added that Japanese tourists are rarely repeat visitors to Hawaii year after year (whereas Americans have a tendency to be more habitual with their travel patterns, Japanese like to try new things), so she had questions from the beginning as to whether the Japanese would be willing to buy into DVC with what is essentially an annual commitment. She said this is really DVC's first foray into being reliant on a foreign market, and she questions how much they were truly aware of the vacation habits of their intended primary market. She added that Japanese are generally "rate card" travelers.

Her opinion all along has been that the Japanese are generally not going to be timeshare buyers in Hawaii.

 

[Chuck S]

This thread has gotten completely away from the topic of Aulani availability, it is now closed.