Nick Wood

President and Group Chief Executive Officer
Distinctive Holiday Homes

A tremendously successful entrepreneur, Wood was the Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and largest shareholder of ihug, one of New Zealand's largest ISPs.

Created in 1993, just a short decade later, ihug was sold and Wood went on to develop a resort in the Fiji Islands before creating Distinctive Holiday Homes.

A global traveler from birth, Wood spent time in Auckland, Singapore, Australia, and Los Angelese in his youth and applied that worldwide vision in DHH's property portfolio, bringing in a diverse mix of real estate around the globe. Distinctive Holiday Homes' collection of properties spans four continents and adds a new property every time that 30 weeks of usage are sold.

Wood is an active participant in growing DHH and is one of the most candid personalities in the destination club sector.

Quotes

"Everyone expected there to be a downturn, and when we built Distinctive Holiday Homes, we steered away from purchasing properties in America because we didn't think it would be a wise investment to purchase stuff that would be worth quite a bit less only months later."

- The Veras Group

"We fully give (the properties) a beating to make sure there's not something people would complain about."

- Unlimited

"Fundamentally, I took a pragmatic approach to the business. As soon as Tanner & Haley went splat, we changed our business model the day after. Previously, we had approached it similarly as everyone else. But after that changed, I decided the most important thing to have in the company to give people peace of mind, is a substantial capital base. We have made sure that we had extensive assets in the business, so everyone knows we had them cover. We would only have to sell one property to cover all of our obligations to members.

"If we devaluate everything worldwide, we still have 8-9 times coverage on member deposits, plus the cash flow from our other businesses. We're not immune to the global economy, but we're not spending money like it goes out of style. We are relatively lightweight and mobile, so we can turn things on as fast as we can turn them off and we just wait for the right time to do that.

"We are very cautious about things. We have to protect our members' deposits."

- The Veras Group

To Distinctive Holiday Homes Executive Team