Luxury Institute Survey: Ultra-Wealthy Consumers Rate Signature Destinations the Most Prestigious Destination Club!; Exclusive Resorts and Private Escapes Tie For Second Place!

NEW YORK -- American ultra-wealthy consumers who know the brand voted relative unknown Signature Destinations the Destination Club with the best reputation.Much larger firm Exclusive Resorts, and smaller player Private Escapes, tied for second place in the Luxury Institute's (www.luxuryinstitute.com) Luxury Brand Status Index (LBSI). E[acute accent]Signature Destinations, despite a low awareness rating of 9 percent among the ultra-wealthy, was rated first in "consistently superior quality, social status, and the ability of the brand to make customers feel special throughout the entire customer experience." Consumers who know the brand also rated it most worthy of a significant price premium. E[acute accent]"We set out to measure 25 brands in this growing hospitality category. However, in the minds of ultra-wealthy consumers, the Destination Club industry is still in its early stages of development. This is indicated by the dramatically low consumers awareness, rendering a large number of brands unable to be rated for lack of a reliable statistical sample," said Milton Pedraza, CEO, the Luxury institute. "The category is populated with new brands with highly generic brand names. Many names are quite similar, generating a significant lack of differentiation in the minds of consumers. In this highly fragmented category, few brands have generated sufficient awareness, or differentiation, to make a strong impression on the wealthy. This accounts for the tight variances in scores across most dimensions on luxury status." E[acute accent]Ten brands were rated overall including (alphabetically): Destinations Private Resorts, Exclusive Resorts, Leading Residences of the World, Private Escapes, Signature Destinations, Tanner and Haley (formerly Abercrombie & Kent Destinations), The Markers Club, The Portofino Club, The Registry Collection (included for comparative purposes), and Yellowstone World Membership Club. E[acute accent]The proprietary Luxury Brand Status Index (LBSI) is the only measure of the value and equity of leading luxury brands to wealthy Americans, based on statistically meaningful objective data collected from wealthy consumers. The LBSI incorporates four "pillars" of value: consistently superior quality, uniqueness and exclusivity, a measure of enhanced social status, and a measure of the ability of a brand to make a customer "feel special." Seven point scale ratings are converted to a 0-100 scale. E[acute accent]In addition to individual and composite metrics by age, gender, income and net worth segments among the wealthy, the survey measures a brand's ability to merit a significant premium price and the correlation of price premium worthiness with the composite index of the four factors above. Another highly critical metric of the research is a rating by wealthy consumers as to brand erosion or enhancement over the past 12 months. E[acute accent]Using LBSI, the Luxury Institute surveyed a nationally representative, statistical sample of more than 400 households with a minimum of $200,000 in gross annual household income and minimum household net worth of $5 million (including home equity). Brands rated were selected with the assistance of industry experts.

E[acute accent]About the Luxury Institute

E[acute accent]The Luxury Institute is the independent and objective research institution that focuses solely on the top 10 percent of America's wealthy. The Institute provides a portfolio of proprietary publications and research to educate high net-worth individuals and the companies that cater to them on trends, wealthy consumer rankings and ratings of luxury brands, and best practices. Publications include the monthly Wealth Report, the Luxury Brand Status Index surveys, the Luxury Best Practices surveys and the Luxury Consumer Experience Index surveys. To reach the Luxury institute, call 646-792-2669 or visit www.luxuryinstitute.com