The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I was quite shocked at my friend Mario Carey’s admonition in Friday’s Tribune Business that “the Government should get a handle on Airbnb because it is doing so well”.

Government involvement in this business will be the death of it in The Bahamas.

Bahamians are so myopic unfortunately but I would have expected more from Mr Carey.

Maybe the Government should get a handle on the Real Estate market and tax sellers on their capital gains, because that must be a huge opportunity for a broke Government.

I just heard a similar type comment on US television that the US Government should perhaps tax Amazon because it is putting the retailers out of business.

Maybe the Bahamas Government should do that too, on all Internet shopping.

They already do on Duty and VAT but maybe they could come up with something else to tax people on.

One might have thought that Mr Carey would see the problems of Hotel Occupancy in the true light of unrealistically high operating costs for everything, and on top of that, the exorbitant VAT and Hotel Room Taxes, imposed by the Government.

Yes, we have a very beautiful country, but we are not the only very beautiful country in the world, nor yet in the Atlantic or Caribbean region which do not have the onerous taxation, and high operating costs, including energy charges, and so can offer a room night at a significantly lower rate than we can.

Like everything in life, business is customer driven, and when you price it too high the customer just goes to the next business or destination. Mr Carey of all people should know this.

Some Airbnb statistics globally at end 2016: 640,000 Hosts. 23 Million Listings, in 57,000 Cities.

BRUCE G. RAINE

Nassau,

December 31, 2016.