Blog

The Fractional Life events team (Piers, Tracey, Jeremie and myself) returned to the UAE earlier this week for our second conference in the region. Last year's inaugural Shared Ownership Fractional Summit MENA, held at Abu Dhabi's Yas Hotel, kicked things off to a good start. This year we upped the ante by holding the event at the iconic Burj Al Arab in Dubai, the world's only seven-star hotel, and it turned out to be an eventful couple of days. A sleepless evening flight from Heathrow saw us [ read more... ]

Piers Brown reports from Portugal. Last week the Registry Collection’s series of European fractional awareness days for 2011 visited the Quinta Da Marinha Hotel (left), Cascais, Lisbon – the last roadshow session. There was a strong collective of around 40 delegates including fractional real estate professionals and many Portugese developers keen to share and learn about the potential for fractional ownership sales in Portugal. These included Oceanico Group, Colinas do Alvor SA, [ read more... ]

The Fractional Life crew made a much anticipated return to Miami at the end of August for the second annual Fractional Summit USA. The days leading up to the event were rather fraught as we tracked the progress of Hurricane Irene with a sense of foreboding and more than a little deja vu (last year, Hurricane Earl was spinning violently off the Carolinas at the same time of year).As the weather across the Eastern seaboard worsened, Piers, Tracey, our French intern Jeremie and I enjoyed a [ read more... ]

Last week Fractional Summit USA was privileged to be a sponsor at the annual ARDA convention at the World Center Marriott, Orlando, Florida. Billed as the premier gathering for the vacation ownership industry, the four-day conference attracts more than 3,000 participants from over 20 countries and offers attendees a myriad of educational, networking and social opportunities.The conference attracted the big-hitters from the fractional, PRC, timeshare, hotel and hospitality sectors and I was [ read more... ]

The Fractional Life team hit the road, or should that be the skies, again this week as Piers, sales manager John Hulme and I flew to San Francisco for the 2011 Ragatz Fractional Interest Conference.We arrived on the Saturday before the conference, giving ourselves the chance to be tourists for a couple of days in this fascinating city, and we dived headlong into the American experience – local beers (particularly Anchor Steam and Fat Tire) in great bars like The Gold Dust Lounge and Lefty [ read more... ]

Europe's biggest and best fractional real estate conference came to town in February, as 200 delegates from countries as diverse as Thailand, Brazil, Norway and Ghana – as well as more traditional vacation property destinations – gathered to network, share knowledge and listen to presentations from industry experts at Fractional Summit 2011.Feedback from the event has been superb, and you can read more about the conference here. But I wanted to use this blog to talk about some [ read more... ]

Fractional Life founder Piers Brown, our designer Pete Matthews of Cave Creative and myself were recently lucky enough to enjoy the splendid hospitality on offer at Ireland's Doonbeg Lodge, in West Clare.After a quick hop on Ryanair from Stansted to Shannon, we de-iced the hire car to brave our way through the heavy mist on icy, winding country roads to our destination, standing alone on the stunning Atlantic coast.Doonbeg was built by the team behind the famous Kiawah Island resort, and as you [ read more... ]

The Fractional Life and Fractional Trade crew headed for pastures new in November, for the inaugural Shared Ownership Fractional Summit Middle East. The event was held at the stunning Yas Hotel, a futuristic creation on Yas Island, right next to a marina and the Formula 1 track. Motorsport was to be an ever-present theme during our time in the UAE. Before the conference got under way, a group of delegates (pictured above) headed off to the newly opened Ferrari World theme park. With more than [ read more... ]

My Fractional Life colleagues, Piers and Tracey, and I are just back from staging the first Fractional Summit USA in Miami. Now the jet lag has cleared it's becoming plain we've launched something special which should go on to become an important fixture in the fractional real estate industry calendar. We had around 170 delegates at the event, which was held at the InterContinental hotel (which has a huge Henry Moore sculpture in the lobby, pictured below) and there was a real buzz around the [ read more... ]

Those of us who are involved with the fractional ownership industry obviously have very high hopes for it – the model makes such good sense for a property-buying public which has had its fingers burned while dipping in to the whole ownership market that, if done properly and scrupulously, it is hard to see why fractional ownership shouldn't blossom into a huge global industry. But there are still plenty of nay-sayers and pessimists, even within the industry. I often hear people say [ read more... ]