Dear Editor,
Letters to the Editor are just opinions – some educated, some not, some right, some wrong. The person making their opinion has the sole purpose of stimulating the conversation not taking credit or abuse, which is why I choose to remain anonymous to encourage others that may have something to say on any subject – but The Daily Herald knows who I am, (a nobody, not related in any way to Sunwing or Spadaro).
Now let’s get back to Sunwing. If I follow SJ’s opinion correctly (Tuesday’s Herald) that Sunwing had every intention before Hurricane Irma of knocking down and rebuilding Great Bay, then that’s a good thing right? But, what if their original intention was to wait a few years? Or what if because of Irma, the hotel they want to rebuild is now much more expensive? When you go to a bank or corporate board to finance a project it would be conditional that they had 100 per cent of the government’s support, participation and certain guarantees. So taking their time with a complete redesign and negotiating a package of incentives with government is to be expected and completely normal.
Every investor coming to the island has the same laundry list of tax holiday, long lease and permit requests, show me one that hasn’t. Nobody is blackmailing the government; it is up to the government to negotiate what is acceptable. What do you think the China Pearl Resort has negotiated? Let’s take a look at that agreement – and by the way, where are they? Investors are not lining up on the borders of St. Maarten, so all I am saying is to take care and show respect to the ones that are already here, hotels and timeshares.
The hotel business is an extremely low-profit-margin industry. Why do you think almost all the hotels in St. Maarten have converted to the very-high-profit-margin industry of timeshare, and yet timeshare resorts continue to go bankrupt and charge excessive “special assessments” to their members. Explain that.
As for Maho, have you looked at it recently? They have done an amazing job since the hurricane to get the buildings cleared and ready for the new refurbishment. If (as you stated) you want to “support the do’ers not the talkers”, then Mr. Spadaro has to be at the top of your list.
Anonymous (and proud of it!)
Name withheld at author's request.
