Quintess Introduces New Destination Club: DUO

The Ultimate Escapes bankruptcy has presented a unique opportunity for many other destination clubs to grow as nearly 1,300 Ultimate Escapes members have been left without their upcoming travel plans. The Discovery Club has unveiled a custom offer for the members of Ultimate Escapes, giving them access to the club's collection of over 2,700 hotels, resorts, cruises, and other affiliate partners. Exclusive Resorts has also introduced a trial membership option, giving members ten days of travel to the club's property portfolio through December 15, 2011. Quintess, The Leading Residences of the World is going a step further by creating a new destination club: DUO.

"DUO is a new destination club operated by Club Holdings," began Todd Miller, the Vice President of Marketing at Quintess, during a recent call about the new club. "It will offer residences across the United States, Caribbean, and Europe with an average residence value of approximately $2 million, a bit of a change from the average $4 million price for Quintess level homes."

The two theme plays a part in the genesis of the DUO brand name according to Miller. "DUO is our second pure destination club. Home values are $2 million. It is also a Latin derivative and similar to Quintess." It also speaks about the experience of the Quintess team and how they will apply this knowledge to their second club venture.

"We want to apply many of the things that we have learned with Quintess to DUO, such as great availability and service. DUO has a planned occupancy rate of between 65% and 75% and excellent travel planning and hosts that go above and beyond not only other luxury travel options, but other destination clubs."

The Quintess family now includes the main club, Quintess, the recently introduced golf membership themed Tour Club, and now DUO. This multi-club approach has been a plan for Club Holdings for some time according to Miller.

"Our multi-club vision has gotten more crystallized in the past one to two years, but virtually since inception we have believed that one club doesn't fit everybody," he said. "The advantages of having a group of clubs means that members have a network of options and are excited about the potential growth from a membership standpoint. That said, our plan isn't just to have three clubs but to have other luxury travel options and if an opportunity is out there that makes sense, we will look at it and consider doing it."

At launch, reciprocity into both Quintess and The Tour Club has not been finalized, but is planned to be introduced by the turn of the year.

The club will launch with a focus on Ultimate Escapes members, but will soon begin actively working with the public "with different membership terms" than those available to Ultimate Escapes members.