Letters to the Editor
Bad Timing for Time ShareTax
Dear Sir,
In response to the recent announcement ofa tax to be imposed upon timeshare owners in Grand Cayman, I wouldlike to say that I find the adoption of this measure by the CaymanianGovernment to be extremely shortsighted.
I have been coming to your beautiful islandannually for over 20 years and I suspect that there are a multitudeof timeshare owners who can say that they have been long-termvisitors as well. I travel, at great expense, from Anchorage,Alaska to visit every year and I have gladly suffered the upsidedown exchange rate for my U.S. dollar these many years.
However, now I am beginning to feel gougedand slightly put upon. I could easily spend a week or more inHawaii just for what my family pays in airfare to get to GrandCayman each year, never mind the several hundred dollars thatwe place into your coffers once we arrive.
I am starting to question the economic sensibilityof traveling thousands of miles to spend our tourist dollars inGrand Cayman when they would stretch much farther at just aboutany other island locale in the Caribbean, or for that matter,in Hawaii or the U.S. Virgin Islands. I find it hard to believethat Grand Cayman, who touts to the world that it is one of themost prosperous of islands that enjoys freedom from taxes in perpetuity,would now start to tax those long-term patrons who have only addedto that prosperity. The logic of this reasoning escapes me.
Caymanian citizens should find this recentturn of events to be alarming as well. Timeshare visitors thathave to pay a daily tax, in addition to hefty annual maintenancefees will now have less disposable income to spend in local shops,restaurants and on water sport activities, all of which will havea negative financial impact upon small business owners on theisland.
A storm of protest is brewing among yoursolid timeshare clientele base, Grand Cayman and your fabled tradewinds are not blowing fairly.
You are not the only "fish in the sea",and this ill-advised measure will steer the savvy timeshare ownerto other ports of call.
Sherry Cryer
Anchorage, Alaska