Government is looking at making changes to laws governing time shares, it was revealed in the Senate yesterday.

Ruling party senator Calvin Smith made the announcement following remarks by Opposition Senator Kim Swan during the budget debate on tourism.

Sen. Swan said that emphasis should be placed on repeat visitors in the quest to reinvent tourism. And he argued that owners of time share units probably constituted a major share of the repeat visitors, estimated to be 47 percent of the overall visitor count. But, he said, time share owners face maintenance costs that are unjustly high and that should be addressed through changing the Time Share Act.

"No matter how affluent a person is, it doesn't stop people from being frugal, when taxes and costs increase," he said.

"Time share costs have increased significantly, significantly enough for some persons to walk away from their units."

He said while the owners of the units paid 100 percent of the maintenance costs, their equity was only 70 percent, down from 80 percent a few years ago.

"They know if they paid an equal portion they would be paying $300 less."

Sen. Swan was twice interrupted by Sen. Smith who said that Government was aware of the concerns and that a review of the legislation was underway.

But Sen Swan persisted saying he felt "duty bound" to raise the concerns. He declared his interest as a former manager of time share operator St. George's Club and as an owner of one of their 71 units. And he said he was speaking on behalf of a visitor Richard Lawrence, another time share owner, who had sought him out to complain about the legislation. "These are persons who made a commitment to Bermuda since 1987 when they purchased time shares here," the Senator continued. "These persons made commitments to bring their families to Bermuda and do so." He said the owners knew Bermuda well and read the local papers. "They even invite we Bermudians to their homes in North America. Yet in an 'age of one man, one vote' they have no representation when it comes to their time share investments," he continued.

He called for longer leases than currently allowed and a board of directors to be set up to give owners of the units some representation.

Sen. Smith said that the matter was already under "active review" and would be taken up during the summer. "Government has had 52 months to deal with this and even in the twilight of their administration they are saying don't worry, it's coming," was Senator Swan's response. Earlier Sen. Smith had lauded the Bermuda Alliance for Tourism (BAT) as a fulfilment of the Progressive Labour Party's platform.

But Sen. Swan assailed Government for not taking up his party's suggestion that Bermuda set up an independent Tourism Authority and said that the BAT could not work because it was vulnerable to political influence.

BAT, a public-private sector tourism think tank, has come up with strategies to lure the affluent visitor, improve the product and expand the shoulder season.

But repeating an argument already made by his party, Sen. Swan said that the Tourism Authority was the only way to go.

"It (BAT) can't work," he said. "Businesses are dependent on Government for their all important work permits and human nature being what it is makes that a very complicated position to be in."

The private sector had directed a booming tourism industry before the advent of party politics, and other jurisdictions had studied Bermuda and decided that the Tourism Authority was the way to go, the Senator said.

Although Government had promised a review of timeshare legislation, a tourism authority would not wait 52 months, as the PLP government had done, before addressing the issue, he said.

Independent Senator Walwyn Hughes said tourism was moving away from timeshare to condominium and part ownership, which any new legislation would need to address.

It would be nice to think a tourism authority would have a "magic wand" but the Tourism Department was taking the "only path that is feasible" by going after wealthy tourists.

"We're in for the long haul and it is going to be incremental improvement rather than spectacular change," he said.

Government Senate Leader Col. David Burch defended the administration's performance on tourism, saying: "History will record David Allen as the greatest tourism minister this country has ever seen. There is no doubt about that. We see his handiwork all over the place."

The UBP's 'Let Yourself Go' campaign had been ridiculed in a book as a tacky, innuendo-ridden attempt to create "20 square mile Club Med," he said.

Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell had admitted last year that the industry had been in decline for 20 years, but the PLP "didn't throw the baby out with the bath water" but the UBP didn't do everything wrong.

When the PLP came into government and held its first meeting with hotel owners, it was the first time there had been proper discussion, he said.

Employers and hotel staff were negotiating quietly behind the scenes rather without public protests, and the Hotel Concessions Act had resulted in $300 million being injected into tourism. In 2002, Bermuda had seen visitor numbers rising for the second year in a row for the first time in a long time, said Sen. Burch. If the PLP was judged on its record, Sen. Burch said he would proclaim: "Praise ye the Lord. If they judge us on our record, you lot (the UBP) had better get used to sitting on that side.

"Regardless of how you have tried to demonise everything this Government has tried to do, this Government has operated in the sunshine of public scrutiny, it has operated with transparency, it has operated with integrity, and it has operated with honesty."