the largest timeshare providers

The largest timeshare providers are not necessarily the most popular ones. The largest  providers tend to be those that have been in the business the longest. To research this you should check out the studies on the website of the American Resort Development Association. 

The American Resort Development Association is the Washington D.C.-based professional association that examines the vacation ownership and resort development industries. Established in 1969, ARDA today has nearly one thousand professional members ranging from privately held firms to publicly traded companies to international corporations who have invested in vacation properties and hotels. The membership also includes timeshare owner associations (HOAs), resort management companies, and members of the ARDA Resort Owners Coalition (ARDA-ROC).

The largest numbers of timeshares is located in Florida. A recent study conducted and funded by ARDA shows that Florida has three times as many timeshare resorts as any other state.  Florida is number one when it comes to the top ten resorts with 378 time-share resorts, which accounts for 23.6 percent of all the resorts in the Unites States.

California is a not so close second place with 123 resorts and South Carolina is in third place with 117 timeshares. The other states that have timeshares are Hawaii (92 resorts), Colorado (77), Nevada (60), North Carolina (55), Texas (54), Missouri (49), and Arizona (46). Which companies own these popular timeshares is not always a matter of public knowledge. However many of them are owned by Middle Eastern Interests from Dubai and other countries. 

The number of timeshare units in the U.S., as of January 1, 2006 was 154,439, with 22,424 newly constructed units in 2005 and an additional 23,578 expected to be constructed by the end of the year. Occupancy at U.S. timeshare resorts averaged 82 percent in 2005, compared to a 67 percent occupancy rate for U.S. hotels during the same time period, which means that the time-sharing boom might be stealing away business from popular hotel chains.

Types of Timeshare Ownership