September 30, 2006

Vacation Resorts International
Purchases Owners’ Resorts & Exchange, Inc. (ORE)

September 30, 2006, Salt Lake City, Utah – Vacation Resorts International (VRI) announces the purchase of Owners’ Resorts & Exchange Inc. (ORE). 

ORE was created by the federal bankruptcy court after the demise in the late 1980’s of Sweetwater, a company that had developed and marketed several vacation ownership resorts in Utah and other western states, in order to protect the investments of approximately 12,000 families who had purchased vacation interests from Sweetwater. 

Since its inception, ORE has managed not only the former Sweetwater resorts, but also many other timeshare resorts across the country.  ORE has been headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah for the past 20 years and those offices will remain intact and operational with the existing team members under the direction of VRI.  ORE also offers an internal exchange program allowing a timeshare owner at one property the ability to exchange into an alternate property.

As stated by Bob Linnell, immediate past Chairman of ORE:  “This is an excellent opportunity. The sale of ORE to VRI will provide ORE owners with many new services and benefits. The ORE team in the Salt Lake City office led by Neil Hutchinson and including Brad Gillies, Scott Burton, Jill Weeks and Colleen Freeman have done an outstanding job for ORE, and will continue to manage the Salt Lake City office (VRI Central Region) under the direction of VRI.” 

“The ORE internal exchange program is extremely attractive, and we look forward to being able to integrate this program into many of the resorts that VRI is privileged to manage as a very cost effective, simple to use program for the owners,” says Roy Fraser, Chairman and CEO of VRI.

“Including the resorts managed by ORE, the VRI family of resorts will increase to almost 150 resort locations and over 300,000 timeshare owners,” says Jan Samson, Senior Vice President Business and Corporate Development & Special Projects.  “We are thrilled to be announcing this purchase of ORE, and are obviously very excited about what it means to our future as well as those of all of our team members and owners that we so proudly serve!”

For individuals interested in more information on Vacation Resorts International, please contact Jan Samson at 863-424-1698 or by E-mail at jan.samson@vriresorts.com.