Diamond Resorts® - Most Valuable Corporate Response

Company: Diamond Resorts®, Las Vegas, NV
Company Description: Diamond Resorts is a vacation ownership company headquartered in Las Vegas, NV. Founded in 1992, Diamond Resorts offers destinations, events and experiences to help our members make a habit of breaking from the routine. The company employs almost 10,000 team members worldwide and is a leader in the timeshare industry. Diamond Resorts is known for its flexible, points-based membership model.
Nomination Category: COVID-19 Response Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Most Valuable Corporate Response

Nomination Title: 10,000 Free Nights for Frontline Healthcare Workers

As the world began to understand the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic in March and April of 2020, frontline healthcare workers across the country faced unimaginable stress. Diamond Resorts CEO Mike Flaskey realized that the company was in a position to help medical first responders on the frontlines of the pandemic by providing a safe space to return to at the end of a long day.

We were able to provide human support and psychological comfort for those working in a high-risk environment. At Diamond Resorts, our goal is to help our members stay in the vacation mindset all year long and get a break from the routine to relax and rejuvenate. While they were working rigorous hours, the ability to comfortably rest and keep their families safe at home was vital for our healthcare professionals.

Healthcare workers around the country shared their discomfort with going home and potentially exposing their loved ones to the virus. Reports of nurses and doctors sleeping in their garages or paying high rates at hotels flooded the media. These stories sparked our initiative. Our properties feature accommodations with full kitchens, living areas and in-unit laundry machines, which provide exactly what our first responders needed: a refuge from work that didn’t risk their loved ones. From April to August, 25 of our resorts across the United States opened their doors to frontline healthcare workers, free of charge.

By the time stay-at-home restrictions had lifted, we had successfully housed frontline workers for over 10,000 free nights. Though the combined cost of these stays was substantial, the most important elements of this initiative were providing peace of mind and community outreach.

Our teams had the unique opportunity to provide necessary emotional support and refuge, which can be among the most difficult needs to fill during a crisis like this. Diamond Resorts received positive testimonies from frontline workers and their families on social media almost immediately, strengthening Diamond’s community bonds through each local resort team who participated in this initiative. Providing these free rooms allowed Diamond to give back to the individuals that keep our society running.

The attached links reflect the media response Diamond Resorts saw throughout our free-stay initiative, as well as the statements that we released through our blog. We've also included several links to social media posts that reflect the public response we received. Included in these social posts aresome of the responses we had from healthcare workers and their families, regarding their stays at our resorts. We believe that these resources reflect the human impact this initiative has had on our local and medical communities.