I got a cunning offer the other day: I could become the fractional owner of a choice piece of property. "So explain 'fractional ownership' to me," I suggested. "Well it means that you and a number of other people all own equal fractions - shares - of the property. Then you work out a roster between all of you and take turns at staying there. It's a great scheme." "It's time-share," I said. "No, it's fractional ownership," she said. And so we went on, eventually agreeing to disagree. There are differences - I think - but my point is that at the end of the day, the nuts-and-bolts result is they are essentially the same... You and the other members of your group of co-owners get to spend 'X' number of days or weeks at the holiday home or whatever and by agreement with the others, you can swap times and seasons. And that to me is essentially what time-share is. I have often wondered about the use of words and descriptions... In the retail motor-vehicle sales industry what used to be a 'second-hand' vehicle is now a 'pre-owned' vehicle - which could perhaps be more accurate since the former tends to suggest only one former owner, whereas the latter could mean anything from one former owner to enough to make up an entire rugby team. Obviously, a completely new concept demands a description that describes it fully and clearly and sets it apart from anything that came before, but I reckon in many cases, a rose by any other name is still pretty much... a rose. And either way, fractional me won't be taking my time to share...


Rod Baker, Content Manager: Send your news to: retailnews@bizcommunity.com; or visit https://www.bizcommunity.com.