MIAMI, Florida — Jamaican hotelier Ian Kerr has expressed an interest in entering the multibillion-dollar timeshare market, arguing that there is great potential for growth in that tourism subsector.

“I think that there is excellent potential for growth, so we are more than willing to get involved. We feel it will give us a good return on our investment,” Kerr told Caribbean Business Report on Tuesday during the 15th Annual Shared Ownership Investment Conference at the Eden Roc Beach Hotel in Miami, Florida.

Kerr operates the Sunset at the Palms in Negril, the 430 -room Sunset Beach Resort, Spa and Waterpark in Montego Bay, as well as the Sunset Jamaica Grande in Ocho Rios.

His properties are among several in Jamaica with which Interval International, a Miami-based travel leisure service company in the vacation ownership market, is working to get preferential rates for its timeshare members.

Timeshare is a model in which multiple parties own rights to use a resort condominium unit at different time periods. But there are few timeshare properties in Jamaica.

Kerr said he is convinced that entering the timeshare industry will guarantee a steady flow of revenue for resorts in Jamaica.

“Even after 9/11 there was not much of a fall-off in the timeshare business because members had already prepaid for their vacation, so it is really a good business,” Kerr explained.

He, however, expressed regret at the long delay in the tabling of legislation to govern the timeshare industry in Jamaica.

Key tourism stakeholders believe that Jamaica, which has less than one per cent of the timeshare market in the Caribbean, has great potential for expansion in that subsector.

And speaking at a seminar on the topic ‘Opportunities Without Borders’ at the conference on Tuesday, Jerris Miller II, whose company operates two timeshare resorts in the Cayman Islands, disclosed that his company is in negotiations with the owners of a resort on Jamaica’s North Coast, with a view to purchasing the property for the timeshare business.

“We are seriously looking at a property in Jamaica to expand and to bring our business model there, because we are very successful in the Cayman Islands,” he said.

“The property (in Jamaica) is having some difficulties and we feel that we can go there and turn it around with our brand,” added Miller II, who is the Operations Manager for Morritt’s Properties Cayman Ltd.

Meanwhile, David Callaghan, Interval International’s vice-president for resorts sales and service, stressed that Jamaica has an “unfilled demand” for timeshare properties.

The Caribbean is the international destination of choice for US leisure travellers in the timeshare industry.