Susan Kime is a writer and editor for luxury publications. She has extensive experience covering shared ownership real estate. As a guest contributor to Helium Report, Susan will write a biweekly column, Luxury Real Estate Insider, tracking trends in destination clubs and fractional developments, following new real estate projects and giving readers insight into how the larger economic picture impacts the luxury real estate market. She can be reached by email here.

February is an anxious time for those in the private residence club and destination club industries. Mid-March is the annual Ragatz Fractional Interest Conference, where the comprehensive report on the state of the industry is released. The report gives a clear picture of how destination clubs and fractional developments fared in 2007, and thus provides a benchmark for what to look for this year. Until then, some emerging trends seem noteworthy.

“The Destination Club industry has slimmed down this year,” said Steve Greer, founder and CEO of The Lusso Collection. “Last year at this time, there were more clubs than we have now.” Greer’s insight is certainly apt. Ultimate Resort and Private Escapes is set to merge into one entity, called Ultimate Escapes. Clubs that are now static or have gone into the ether include My Global Playground, Global Destinations and the Ciel Club, which evolved into an assemblage that deals with land conservancy.

On the high end, the most successful and seasoned club still in existence is Solstice. But even Solstice now has a potentially strong competitor: the new Everlands destination club. With a $1 million member registration fee, Everlands plans to mine a niche within a niche—the extremely wealthy who also happen to love conservation and adventure travel. “We call ourselves an Experience Club, not a destination club, because our club provides great outdoor experiences with an eco-sensitive dimension,” said Ken May, Everlands CEO. “Our club defines the great experience, not the home itself, as the major focal point.”

With Solstice, Everlands and Exclusive Resorts, another emerging dimension is the adventure travel experience. Solstice purchased two far-flung villas, one in Verbier, Switzerland and another in the Brazilian rain forest, that will be completed in the second quarter of this year. Everlands has properties in New Zealand and Patagonia, to name a few, while Exclusive Resorts has its Once In A Lifetime program, where members can book trips, like trekking in the Himalayas or an African safari, in lieu of booking a night at one of the club’s homes.

Underscoring eco-sensitivity and geographic awareness are actually substantial sales tools, urgently needed at present. With the deflation of the real estate market making its mark on the industry, the shift towards selling an experience rather than a product is likely a smart marketing move.

“We are all attached to the economy in some way,” said Dr. Richard Ragatz, president of Ragatz Associates, a fractional consulting company. “There are 150 to 155 PRC projects with active sales now, the higher end clubs have grown slightly, and the mid-levels are somewhat stable. We don’t have the accompanying stats yet, but this is what it looks like right now.”

Other changes in the industry that are affecting clubs? “There is a subtle paradigm shift in our industry within the past year, due to our capricious economy,” said Mark Cibik, the Managing Director of Solstice. “Many who considered membership in a club because of pleasure value now are joining because of its simplicity as a solution to avoiding the now very evident risks of owning their own resort home in declining markets.”