New Delhi, July 20 -- Sterling Holiday Resorts is quietly killing the vacation ownership business that built the company.

The leisure hospitality subsidiary of Thomas Cook India stopped selling new memberships about two-and-a-half years ago. Its 50,000 legacy members now provide an occupancy cushion as Sterling builds a conventional hotel business ahead of its demerger from the parent and a separate listing, managing director and chief executive Vikram Lalvani said.

"The membership model is not bad, but economically it may not work in the long term. We sunset acquisitions about two-and-a-half years ago. We first moved towards leisure hospitality and then towards a larger hospitality play," Lalvani told Mint.

The shift is already reshap...