TOURISM GIANT SLASHES COAST JOBS

TIMESHARE exchange business RCI Asia Pacific will cut 60 people from its Bundall office, with its call centre and other backroom operations relocating to Singapore.

Managing director Charisse Cox (pictured) will stay on the Gold Coast with the scaled back staff to service key clients and affiliated resorts, while the call centre and other back office work will relocate.

Staff members were told of the redundancies yesterday and will have three months’ work before the office, based the Gold Coast City Council-owned Waterside building, is reduced to just 10 people. A decision is yet to be made where the remaining staff will be based.

“No one has been made redundant immediately, we will transition over a three month period, giving our employees time to organise themselves and we will be actively seeking avenues of employment for them,” Cox tells Gold Coast Business News.

Wyndham Worldwide group of companies, which has a strong presence on the Gold Coast through Wyndham Vacation Resort Asia Pacific at Bundall and its Surfers Paradise resort, owns the global RCI group.

It is a surprising move, as the office was the best performer in the world in 2011 for member retention and was recently listed as one of the top 50 best places to work in Australia.

Cox says it is purely a business decision.

“We had a very strong return and performed very well as a region for the last few years and the people here are very good performers,” says Cox.

“The reason (for the move) is not poor performance, it is not because we are not dedicated to the industry, it is simply about RCI, as part of Wyndham Worldwide, looking at its opportunities globally and consolidate certain parts of the business.”

“It was initially a shock as we were performing very well, but when functions are looked at globally and efficiencies are identified those things have to be taken into account.”

RCI Asia Pacific has a team in Singapore and will expand that team to handle the increased workload and some staff will be offered roles in that office.

The company has had a presence on the Gold Coast for 26 years and early last year employed 85 staff.

There are more than 4000 resorts affiliated with RCI globally and the business has four million members.