Market growth drives industry boom

Friday, Aug. 25, 2000 | 11:30 a.m.

Watching the buzz of activity at the Cancun Resort Las Vegas sales center, it's no surprise that the time-share industry is booming in Las Vegas.

Gerald Greenbach, director of resorts for Monarch Grand Vacations, which operates the Cancun Resort, said the reason is that the market has expanded. No longer are time-share buyers just the soon-to-retire couples in their 50s and 60s. It's a much younger crowd, Greenbach said, with mobile families looking to own a block of time in a resort community where they can vacation every year.

The American Resort Development Association, which represents the nation's time-share companies, said the industry employed about 21,000 in Nevada and generated more than $1.2 billion a year in economic impact for the state even before the boom of the late 1990s got started.

The association said Nevada time-share sales have been growing at a rate of 15 percent a year. Greenbach said Las Vegas is the No. 2 time share market in the country behind theme-park heaven, Orlando, Fla.

When completely developed, Cancun Resort would be the largest time-share development in Las Vegas with 917 suites. And there are others that have made their mark in the city with even more on the horizon. Some of the others:

Polo Towers is a three-tower, 512-suite complex on the east side of the Strip, just south of the new Aladdin hotel-casino. The 22-story, 190-unit Villas at Polo Towers complex, built for $45 million in 13 months by Perini Building Co., was completed in July.