Welk Resorts, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, today announced the promotion of Jon Fredricks to the position of President & Chief Executive Officer. President since 1999, Fredricks has led the award-winning hospitality company during its greatest period of growth and expansion.
Today Welk Resorts operates family-friendly vacation resorts with theatre and golf in Escondido (north of San Diego); golf in Palm Springs; skiing in Lake Tahoe; a luxury beach resort in Cabo San Lucas; as well as one with a theatre in Branson. These properties operate as resorts and as Interval International Premier Resorts timeshares and have been honored with Gold Crown status by Resort Condominiums International, a major worldwide vacation exchange organization. Future Welk properties include a ski resort in Breckenridge, Colorado, and a beach resort in Kauai, Hawaii.
“Jon has built an incredible team of individuals who believe in our mission of ‘Creating Vacation Memories to Cherish for a Lifetime,’” said Welk Resorts Chairman of the Board Larry Welk, whose father Lawrence Welk, the renowned TV host and bandleader, opened the first Welk Resort in the San Diego area in 1964. “Jon understands that the true value of an organization is in its people. Those who see him in action know that he takes personal responsibility to achieve the best outcome for our team and our company.”
Grandson of the late Lawrence Welk, Fredricks led Welk Resorts through the 2008 recession, when it was one of the few vacation ownership companies to grow. In 2013, Welk Resorts was able to fully subscribe a $158 million securitization, rated “A” and “BBB+” by S&P, with eleven institutional investors, the only West-coast based company to accomplish this. Welk Resorts has posted annual revenue growth of over 18% for the past ten years and in 2014 is on target to achieve over $150 million in annual revenue, a growth of approximately 31 percent over 2013.
The company currently has 1,600 employees and 1077 vacation units across its portfolio. One of Welk’s core attributes as a company and a brand is to deliver a four- and five-star-quality guest experience and resort environment to a timeshare demographic. To that end, the company’s oldest resort, near San Diego, has received renovations totaling over $20 million in the past five years, including a new state-of-the-art fitness center, and its Cabo beach resort will unveil an elegant new restaurant in early 2015. Guest ratings across all Welk Resorts properties consistently rank towards the highest end of the RCI and II systems, as well as on the company’s own market-metric scores.
“I am very proud of the many accomplishments that Welk Resorts has achieved under Jon’s leadership,” said Welk. “I am confident that there will be many more milestones to celebrate as Jon continues at the helm of this stellar team in his new role as President & CEO.”
Among his other leadership roles, Fredricks was the General Manager of Welk Resort Branson; Vice President of Welk Real Estate; Board Member of the Real Estate Roundtable; Chairman of the American Resort Development Association (ARDA); and Board Member for Welk Group Inc. and Welk Hospitality Group, Inc. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Urban Planning from the University of California, San Diego; graduated from Union Bank’s Commercial Lender Training Program; and is an American Hotel & Lodging Association Certified Hotel Administrator and an ARDA Registered Resort Professional. He is also active in the Lawrence Welk Family Foundation.
