Cash bookings are fine, but it is not a strategy that
DVC will ever want to embrace. They were forced to do it at Aulani, and are forced into it at Riviera as well. Cash bookings give them immediate earnings, but the investment here is to sell the resort out and get their profits. The profits margin on $200 per point rooms are in the 75-80% range. The profit margin on a nights stay is more like 30-40%. Selling points is always where they want to be.
Totally agree, never expected VGF to outlast RIV. And there's also no doubt that putting VGF on sale at the same time would adversely affect RIV sales.
However, why is Disney suddenly putting other resorts up for sale. Their strategy for the last ten years (BLT -> VGF -> PVB -> RIV) was to essentially have one main resort on sale at a time. They bring RIV on in 2019, and sales are the weakest in the first year for a new resort in all that time. So weak that a year in they declare they are opening VGF at the same time. Then they bring on Poly2 and Fort Winderness to also compete with Poly.
(I do not look at
Disneyland Hotel as a competitor for east coast
Here we agree. I don't think they are a huge sales killer - they hurt, but are they a big enough problem to cause RIV their soft sales? I don't know. I don't think they know.
2030 is not ridiculously pessimistic at all. Best case when it opened - and probably original target when it opened - was 2026. It has sold out just past 50% in 4.5 years, but sales rates have dropped off significantly. This year sales rates have not exceeded 50,000 points for any month. Assuming DVC can sustain sales of 50,000 points per month, that's 55 more months, or 4.5 years, which means at current rates sell-out will be mid-2028. However, with Poly2 and Fort Wilderness coming into the mix, do you expect sales on Riviera to go UP in the next 2-3 years, or down? I would argue realistically 2029 to 2030 for selling out Riviera, unless they decide to put up some big incentives to get it sold.
And I also want to say this - my MAIN reason for them keeping it the same is NOT the restrictions. It's the fact they can sell points with a 42 year lease instead of 50.