I think they have a few different options for adding Poly Tower inventory to the mix during the sales period.
For those who haven't followed the
breadcrumbs back to the VDH thread, I assert the following about how DVC declares rooms after closely monitoring the Riviera (since March of this year) and VDH declarations/inventory/sales levels:
- DVC's current MO is not to have 'inventory dumps' where they add a bunch of inventory to all bookable dates due to a declaration. They've demonstrated, repeatedly, they'd rather provide that inventory somewhat invisibly at the 11m booking window.
- I suspect this is because it makes booking easier for owners during the sales period and reduces complaints about how hard it is to book at an actively sold resort.
- It also avoids 'fairness' complaints if someone couldn't book something at 11m as an owner but it becomes readily available for anyone at 3m due to declarations.
- It also reduces unused rooms (if you add inventory a week before a stay, it has a good chance it will not be occupied).
In practice, their MO is to forecast sales a year-ish out and make at least that much inventory available at 11m booking window. As the dates-of-stay approach, they file the formal declaration paperwork to align with the inventory levels previously made available via booking tool.
DVC's inventory rollout MO makes it logistically harder to include Poly Tower into the same association as PVB, but not at all impossible. I don't even think it factors significantly into their decision of same association vs. new association.
For the sake of simplicity, let's assume Poly2 has the same ~4mil points as Poly1 and that it's the same association in the following scenarios.
Why DVC probably can't stick to their normal MO of adding inventory and declaring Units based strictly on forecasted sales:
Thus far, ~4mil PVB points have been sold, all for longhouses and bungalows, and adding all-new accommodations into the same association creates a really unbalanced rollout if you think of it as one giant resort.
There will be some number of owners in the Poly1 4mil bucket wanting to book at the new Tower. Hypothetically, let's say 25% of Poly1 points want to book at the new Tower when it opens. Let's also assume that in pre-opening sales that Poly2 sells 15% of its points (same ballpark as RIV and VDH) and that 2/3rds of
those points 'want' to book the Tower.
25% + 10% combined is a 35% 'demand load' on the new Tower despite only 15% being sold by the time it opens.
For reference: 1yr after VDH's opening the available inventory is ~45% of total inventory despite just ~15% being sold so far. This means that just 15% of VDH points are competing for 45% of rooms at VDH at 11m now. Something similar happened with RIV, too.
But for Poly2, it will be an equivalent of 35% of Tower points competing for 45% of Tower inventory, a much worse ratio that will lead to "it's hard to book at Poly Tower" complaints. At least if they stick to their normal MO.
It might even be worse if more than 25% of Poly1 points want to just try the new Tower early on. If 50% of Poly1 points want to use their points at Poly2 early-ish, that means an equivalent of 60% of points are competing for 45% of inventory despite just 15% of Poly2 being sold. This is bad!
Eventually it all works out when Poly2 is sold out. But for smooth sailing during active sales period of Poly2, their normal MO for adding inventory probably won't be sufficient. It might even deter some sales, the one thing they really care about.
They have other options though!
Option 1 - Keep it simple, declare it all:
IIRC, when VGF2 opened, it was all declared at once. I don't know if all rooms were available in inventory immediately (I have have
strong doubts), but it was all declared and this drama was basically avoided.
Option 2 - Over-declare just a little bit:
If it's 'normal' to have 45% of inventory available at 11m out of 15% of sales, then maybe they make 60-70% of Poly Tower rooms available/declared instead of the normal 45%.
It should be enough to relieve much of the likely booking pressure at Poly2, but without some form of Poly1 inventory clawback I think this is less appealing to Disney.
Option 3 - Declare it all or over-declare, but make available inventory across both Poly1 and Poly2 match expected booking patterns by holding back rooms for cash with DVD-owned points:
I'm only 95%, not 100%, on the legal/contractual viability of this one, but I like this one the best.
Just because a Unit is declared doesn't mean that it must be in inventory. DVC owns, or has received in trades/breakage/etc., a lot of points and routinely holds back inventory to align with the points they own or have access to. They, in turn, rent those rooms for ca$h.
I don't see why it would be different here where they might have declared most/all of the Poly2 Units, but still hold inventory back with the significant number of points they own.
Why I like this one: in addition to holding back Poly2 inventory, they could also hold back Poly1 inventory. It is one resort, after all.
How this could look: on opening day of Poly2 when they have sold 15% of new points, they have 65% of Poly2 inventory available for booking in addition to 'just' 80% of Poly1 inventory available. They've sold '115% of 200%' at this point, and have '145% of 200%' inventory available, exactly the same as what they would have had with separate associations.
Why I think DVC might like this one: they still get a lot of rooms to rent on cash (in fact, they likely get even more Deluxe Studios, which are the cash-cows of the cash rentals via Disney), they can probably dodge the 'it's hard to book here' complaints, and it allows them to progressively add inventory as a normal rollout would.
