Portofino has introduced a new luxury destination club - the Continental Collection. This is the third club for Portofino and complements their Signature Collection, with $1.2m homes, and the Portofino Collection with $2.5m homes.

We spoke to Rance Rogers the President of Portofino earlier this week, to find out about this new club and the latest developments at Portofino.

The Continental Collections first $3.5m homes will be in Montecito, Napa, Vail, Scottsdale, Palm Springs and Paris. The two homes in Napa and Montecito (pictured right and below) are open now, with the others opening in 2007. Members also have unlimited reciprocal usage of the homes in the Signature and Portofino Collections, so a total of 27 homes altogether.

The membership fee, which is 80% refundable, is $395,000 and annual dues are $30,000 for unlimited days of usage. Rogers is expecting a proportion of the current clubs members to upgrade into the Continental Collection.

Portofino was founded in 2002 and merged with Signature destination club in 2006. This new club gives Portofino a full range of offerings with homes at $1.2m, $2.5m and $3.5m. In addition the Signature and Portofino Collections have a range of membership tiers, with individual plans offering 15, 30 and 45 days usage and then corporate plans which offer 25 days usage to each member on the plan. Overall they provide a wide selection for affluent families or companies with different travel requirements.

All the Portofino clubs have generous family privileges so that the adult children and the parents of members have the same rights as members, meaning that the member does not need to be present during a vacation. Most other clubs have more limited rights for unaccompanied family members, for example they might be able to stay for just 7 days a year on an unaccompanied basis or in other cases the member always has to be present. Rogers also mentioned that the clubs occupancy rate last year was about 60-65% and the overall goal is to keep it below 70%.

Private Escapes has a similar series of three clubs with their Premier, Platinum and Pinnacle clubs providing luxury vacation homes, at similar levels to Portofinos.