29 July, 2014

Dear Sir,

We just returned home from our twelfth vacation in Bermuda, and our fifth visit to the beautiful Pompano Beach Club.

Although the resort was wonderful, outside the resort we found a surprising indifference to tourists (and perhaps residents as well) on the part of many of the “tourism industry”.

As space is limited in this column, we will share only two incidents which typify our feeling of indifference toward tourists: first, in St George’s we attempted to visit the Bermuda National Trust Museum on Friday, July 18. It was closed.

We walked to the Tourism Office, and were told that the Museum is often closed during normal business hours, and that is a “constant complaint”, resulting in many individuals being disappointed and annoyed.

Of course, we will tell anyone who might visit the Museum to avoid it. (Note that before going to St George’s, we asked our resort to call to confirm the Museum hours, but there was no answer when they called.

Also, in case the Museum was only closed for a brief period, we returned several times throughout the afternoon.)

We also note that the Bermuda National Trust Gift Shop in Hamilton is only open for very limited hours.

Our second incident concerned the gift/ferry ticket/information building at Dockyard. We picked out a number of souvenirs to buy for those at home, but decided we would return later to buy them after we finished our visit to Dockyard.

When we returned to the information building at 4.15pm, we found it locked! (No hours of operation were posted; a passer-by informed us that it closes at 4.00pm.) A cruise ship was still in port, and many people were walking around. Why would the information booth and store close so early?

Of course it lost a significant sale. The message conveyed was that Dockyard “rolls up the sidewalks” at 4pm, and visitors are no longer welcome after that time.

We love Bermuda, and will return, but the Ministry of Tourism needs to take steps to encourage tourists’ satisfaction, not discourage it!

DAVID AND LOUISE KINGSLEY