What is the status of WHR Casa Grande (Desert Shadows)?

RV Management Services has taken over the reins at Casa Grande. WHR has developed a great relationship with the owner of RVMS and we look forward to a long association with them.   If you visit Indian Waters you will see the improvements that they were able to do in just one short year. This is a good demonstration of the benefit of having someone else buy a property. They bring a revenue source that allows for them to make the improvements that take the resort up to a true 5 star facility.

What happened with Charleston Peak and how will this affect the WHR members?

The mortgage for Charleston Peak was in the process of a 5 year rollover when the bank that held the mortgage went into default and was taken over by the FDIC.  The FDIC had another bank take over the assets of the bank. WHR was current on the loan and was prepared for another 5 year rollover, which had been standard practice up to this point.  However, the new bank (CNB) had no interest in taking on a new mortgage (a rollover) and forced us out by requiring a full payoff of over 3 million.  

Because of a requirement by the state of Nevada, the current owners of the property must continue to honor the memberships.  Charleston Peak home park members may keep their home park status with the resort. Annual dues, as instructed by the letter from CNB, should be sent directly to the resort.  Charleston Peak members may also choose to change home parks and select another WHR owned resort as a replacement. Either way this does not affect usage in the WHR system, home park members of Charleston Peak will continue to be considered WHR members.   

All members should call the resort directly for availability at 775-751-7805.

What can members expect in the future with WHR?

WHR’s overall agenda is to work toward reducing debt while still being  able to service the members.  This does possibly mean the sale of some more properties. The southwest is very important to us, Arizona and California are areas well suited to the membership camping industry.  Our intent is to sell as few properties as possible, which implies that we want to keep resorts in the southwest and Colorado. It is important that the members understand that we are truly working toward providing the best system possible.

How can my adult children benefit from my membership?

If you are an active member of Adventure Outdoor Resorts (AOR), your adult children may enroll as AFM (Adult Family Members) for $39 per year. Privileges include access to all AOR parks at the same nightly rate that you pay when using AOR parks. Contact AOR for details.

As a WHR member why can I use my AOR at WH resorts but, I am unable to use my ROD membership at WH resorts?

ROD, Coast to Coast, RPI have usage policies in place that state if you are a member of a specific resort or resort system, such as WHR, or CRA, etc, you may not use your ROD, Coast or RPI membership at the resort or resort system in which your membership is associated.

How does WHR define WHR affiliate resort usage?

A WHR affiliate resort is not necessarily owned by WHR, but is willing to accept reservations for WHR members. Nightly fees and privileges may not be exactly the same as when using a WHR owned resort, but they are reasonably the same.

Has the WHR membership base decreased with the sale of parks?

The rate of member attrition per resort has not been greater than any other year. Many member have chosen to sell or give away their membership, most likely due to the economy. The person(s) taking over the membership will pay dues at a greater rate then the selling member.

Why, when WHR sells a resort, aren’t my membership dues reduced?

WHR members actually join one resort and pay dues to one resort. But, since WHR is a multi park system, members are given access to all the WHR resorts through ‘sister’ type relationship. The camping membership business is made up mostly of single resorts that have no relationship with any other parks. WHR is one of the few systems to exist in the camping membership industry and so our members have had the benefit of accessing multiple parks for one price and for only one annual dues.You will find that often the price for one resort is the same, or possibly more, than what WHR members paid to have access to a multi park system. The dues paid to these single resorts are most likely the same for one resort as WHR charges for access to multi resorts.

What Is The Reservation/Network Access Fee?

Please note the $35 Reservation/Network Access Fee included in the recent WHR dues billing.  Like last year, this one-time annual fee will cover unlimited reservations for 2011 at WHR resorts by WHR members.  The fee is increased slightly over last year’s rate to cover the cost of keeping the WHR member database updated both within the WHR system and with any reciprocal companies.  You will still have the option, if you’d prefer, to pay on a per reservation basis at the resort.

For those members who do not pay an annual fee, you may decide that you want to let your membership go inactive with the option of reactivating at a later date.  If you do ultimately locate a buyer for your membership or decide you’d like to start traveling again, you may notify WHR’s member services for the reactivation process.  You may consider this if you are thinking of selling your RV and want to include your membership with the sale.

If you have paid the reservation/network access fee, if it is included in your dues, or if you have elected to pay the reservation fee (part of the Special Services Fee) when checking in at a resort, then please disregard the notice you receive(d) in the mail.  Finally, if your specific contract excludes this fee, then please disregard the notice.

If you have been trying to reach us by phone, please understand that this time of year is exceptionally busy for our member services department and it is difficult to answer every call.  If you have further questions of the reservation/network fee, feel free to email whrinfo@whrus.com and we will get back to you as quickly as we can.  While waiting for a response you might want to monitor your ‘junk’ mailbox.  Our response email is coming from a company and many email servers may identify it as ‘junk mail’ and will not allow it to pass automatically to your inbox.

Are WHR properties for sale?  What does this mean for my membership?

WHR has recently listed several of its resort properties for sale.  As you can imagine, the debt service on real property can be quite substantial.  We have determined that it makes good financial sense to attempt to sell the actual real property, allowing us to take advantage of the appreciation, eliminate the debt service, and maintain sites to continue hosting our members at the resorts.  This can be accomplished by leasing back sites from a purchaser.  

Without having the debt payments that come with owning the real estate, WHR intends to make lease payments that are substantial enough to provide a new owner with incentive to take care of the property and the members with the same, if not better, standards of care as you receive now.  Remember, many businesses, including other resort systems, operate in this fashion, choosing not to waste their funds on property ownership.  As structured, the sale of the property should have no affect on your membership.  Our ultimate hope is that this will give us the flexibility to explore the addition of more leased sites at more locations where our members like to travel.  

What is the new ‘Ultimate’ program that we have heard about throughout the system?

This is a WHR membership upgrade that will allow you to reduce your nightly charges, including site fees, energy fee and special services. In addition, we have included other benefits that will allow for enhanced reservations and park-to-park usage. Anyone interested in more information should contact the sales department at resorts.

There is a rumor that a large company in the industry is buying WHR, is it true?

This same rumor has been around for the last decade.  There is no such purchase agreement.

Why does the wi-fi system still, on occasion, have problems?

This is an ongoing battle that is a result of abuse of the system.  The wi-fi was intended for moderate use, such as, emails, shopping and general web surfing. However, ‘skyping’ (the practice of using telephone service via wi-fi) and downloading of large files, such as movies, takes up a great amount of bandwidth. This will slow, or even jam up the whole system for everyone.  It is much like electric usage, if you have one RV using 500 amps, then the rest of the users on the same run will not even be able to pull 30 amps. The new coupon system has helped, but there will still be occasions when someone is using up the bandwidth by skyping.

 

Why has WHR implemented a Nightly Utility Charge and Special Services Fee? 

Over the past 26 years we have always tried to keep the purchase price of our memberships and the annual dues low.  Because our package is a multi-park  membership package, you will find the cost of our membership and dues are priced as low as memberships others are selling with just a single park.  The largest system in the industry has a package that offers a membership that includes only three of their resorts with dues of $549 a year, much higher then WHR dues for 18 resorts.  We purposely left ourselves in a position that we could increase nightly charges if necessary. Keep in mind, by charging nightly fees, this allows us to keep our dues lower.  You only pay nightly fees when using the system, whereas, if we put these charges in the annual dues you would be paying annually whether or not you use the WHR system.

 

When we joined WHR there were more resorts in the system then are currently available to us because some resorts have been sold. How do you reconcile this fact with members?

Bear in mind that you are simply looking at a relatively small snapshot in time with respect to the number of resorts within the system. The membership you purchased is a multi-lifetime membership, meaning it may be utilized for many years into the future.There will likely be increases and decreases in the number of facilities offered over this time, based on the economy, usage, number of members, etc. Between the years of 2000 and 2005, eight resorts were added to the system. Between 2005 and present, four resorts were sold, with most allowing for continued usage by WHR members. Most likely the numbers will continue to change in the future. While it is always a difficult decision to sell a resort within the WHR system, WHR is obligated to operate in the best interest of its members as a whole. As I'm sure you can imagine, the economy has significantly impacted companies like WHR, which are largely dependent on people traveling and being willing to use their discretionary income in these difficult times. WHR is attempting to take the necessary steps to do what it can to remain a viable company and to continue to offer quality facilities to its members. Eliminating non-producing resorts that drain other producing resorts is one of these steps.

 

 What is the legality of Canadians working at WHR resorts?

Any paid employee must sign an I-9 that states that they are a legal US resident, or that they have forms that give them proper authorization to work in the US. An example  would be a ‘Green Card.’

 What is the financial situation of Western Horizon Resorts?

 Because WHR is a privately held company; financial information is only disclosed to shareholders and the board of directors.  Members do not have ownership in the company; the membership is a ‘right to use.’  With this being said, members may come to expect certain amenities and resorts to be available to them based upon the membership they purchased and what was available at the time of their purchase.  Because these things may change from time to time, a member may question the financial integrity of the company, assuming that we have sold resorts or limited the amenities because we needed the cash.

The best way for us to address this question or members' concerns about WHR is to give you a broad overview of what is happening currently in our company and the RV industry in general, and telling you how we are facing these challenges.

The current state of the economy is common knowledge and has touched us all. The member base has declined because many have found that keeping up a membership is their last priority when they are paying their bills.  Usage is down because people cannot afford to travel. If they are working, they are afraid to take time off, or their budget does not provide them with the needed gas money. There are many factors that affect usage, and these are just a few.  In addition, new member sales have been slowed by the general state of things.

Leading up to the credit bubble bursting that caused many economic woes, WHR had already been battling increased energy costs at the resorts.  Things were tight with the energy crunch and high gas prices, then the economy tumbled and things got a little tighter.   WHR had to be proactive and find a way to increase revenue and cut expenses so that we would not have to limit the amenities available for our members. First we implemented an energy charge to help offset the excess cost of utilities, and most recently we began charging for ancillary services, such as wi-fi.  We have cut labor costs and have been actively reducing utility costs by implementing energy saving programs, and our managers have been outstanding in maintaining their resorts within their budgets.  All these things have helped us get through the past year and should help to keep us going into the future. 

We are open to suggestions and would welcome your positive input on how to balance our costs and still be able to provide members with resorts that will provide the experience you’ve come to expect. Do keep in mind we have mortgage payments, taxes, insurance, operational costs and utility costs among the major costs associated with this business. Most of you have experienced the ups and downs in life, fought through tough times and have been successful.  We would value your input, so, please if you have an idea to share, let us know.  You will find contact information on the website, or email whrinfo@whrus.com.

 

 Why doesn't WHR communicate better with the members?

Regrettably, WHR is guilty.  We do try to keep our website updated and we have put together newsletters that are available at the resorts.  Unfortunately, this information does not reach everyone.  Mailing a newsletter to each member is extremely costly, one mailing to all members would cost over $10,000 for just postage and then we still have the cost of the letter itself, which is at least another $1,000.   We simply believe that these funds would be better spent on the resorts.  We hope this question and answer sheet will help keep you updated.  We will do our best to address the questions that we hear the most from our members. We will also try to keep you informed of changes and other news on a timelier basis. If you have a question, please email us at whrinfo@whrus.com.