Dear Editor, Interesting to see that new access fee sign at the entrance to the Wigmore/Papua falls road. The last time the “Landowner” did this, the reason/justification was that the funds raised would be used to upgrade the road to the falls.

As history can show, this never eventuated, and one has to wonder indeed where those funds raised ended up?

This nonsense of charging fees to access Wigmore Falls, this is one of the major activities for visitors/tourists to Rarotonga … water in the falls or not, this is one mini adventure that so many visitors undertake.

This new rip off is just about the worst piece of public relations with regard to welcoming visitors to Rarotonga. Tourism Cook Islands, you make such a big deal about making visitors feel welcome … think about what impact this ridiculous scam will have on visitor opinions. And please no excuse about that road being on private land, it has always been open to the public, and there is absolutely no reason why that should change at this time. Remember, tourism is everyone’s business. One landowner should not be able to change that.

Furthermore, to put the fee charge into perspective, to redo that road is estimated to cost about $600,000. At $5 per vehicle, and say 30 (guesstimate) vehicles per day: $150 per day x 6 days = $900 per week – less local gatekeeper wages of course, say 8 hours @ $10 per hr, comes to $80 x 40hrs = $320. That leaves maybe about $600 per week x 50 weeks = $30,000. And shared equally between the road upgrade and Cook Islands SPCA, my calculation makes that about 40 years before the road working can become a reality, assuming roading costs remain constant – very unlikely! And the above figures do not include VAT, or other government taxes and charges.

This entire scenario seems very peculiar.

As mentioned above, Tourism is everyone’s business. So Cook Islands Tourism, what are you doing about this?

(Name and address supplied)