Home Sweet Time Share Vacation retreats go upscale as hotel chains cash in on their growing popularity

As Mike and Jackie Bottsworth headed into retirement two years ago, they toyed with the idea of buying a vacation home. But the Portland,MN., couple, who wanted to escape gray winters for sunnier climes, could never decide where to settle down. "We liked everything," says Mike Bottsworth, 58. "We liked the oceans; we liked the mountains. We liked to travel." The one thing the Bottsworths did not like: the prospect of living out of suitcases and bouncing from hotel to hotel. "We wanted it to feel like: 'Gee, I want to go to my own home in Aspen next month,' " he says.

Their solution? A membership in Tanner & Haley's Private Retreats, a "destination club" consisting of multimillion-dollar properties around the world. So far, the Bosworths have enjoyed extended stays at homes in the Caribbean; Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; and Deer Valley, Utah. "It's a great way to share an experience with family and friends," says Mike Bottsworth. Last year, the couple turned Tanner & Haley's 8,000-square-foot Italian-style villa in San Diego into the makeshift headquarters for their daughter's wedding, housing both their family and in-laws under one roof.

Destination clubs, along with the familiar concept of time shares, have become increasingly attractive to those who want it all: the creature comforts of a vacation home without the headaches of traditional ownership. No-hassle ownership is just part of the newfound appeal: Once considered dowdy stepsisters, time shares have gained new respectability under the imprint of well-established hotel companies, expanding to ritzier properties and offering the high-end services of name-brand operators.

" Selling a reality. " Investment in the new, improved time-share market has paid off handsomely. Despite slack demand in the hospitality industry following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the time-share industry has steadily posted double-digit gains. New sales of U.S. time shares soared 21.4 percent last year, from $6.5 billion in 2003 to $7.9 billion, according to the American Resort Development Association, and construction of new units is projected to increase by nearly 12 percent this year. "It's really a good time in the industry," says Dick Ragatz, president of Ragatz Associates, a market research firm that tracks the industry. High-end options have grown at an even faster rate: Destination-club sales worldwide jumped from $140 million to $450 million during the same period. And"fractionals," a term that refers to the most expensive time shares where owners can bunk for more than the typical time-share week, saw their worldwide sales more than triple from $373 million to $625 million in 2004.

Not so long ago, time shares were more likely to be associated with pushy sales people and predatory marketing tactics than with a restful vacation. That has largely changed. The time-share concept, which dates to the mid-1970s, was devised as a solution to a glut of condos on the market. Starting in the early 1980s, a host of better legislative and regulatory protections, along with the development of trade associations, have helped clean up the time-share industry's tarnished reputation and protect buyers from fraud. "No one can be selling someone a dream," says Howard Nusbaum, president of ARDA. "They have to be selling a reality."