Dear Sir,Yesterday (August 22, 2020), we were in a small town in Connecticut talking to a local business owner. He relayed to us that he had been in Bermuda once, 15 years ago. They stayed at Cambridge Beaches, which, as he recalled, “was not inexpensive”. He said they had a dreadful experience — the room was filthy and when they complained, the staff were very negative. One evening, he told us, that they decided to stay in their cottage and ordered room service for dinner, which took 2½ hours to come, in spite of multiple phone calls reporting that dinner had not yet arrived. He says his overall impression was of rude and unfriendly service, and complacency. Needless to say, they have never been back. These sorts of visitors are our prime demographic: close by and comparatively affluent.I write to you not to criticise Cambridge Beaches, as I’m sure that in the intervening 15 years, they have fixed their staff’s attitudes and service — hopefully — but since there have been a couple of articles in The Royal Gazette recently about attracting Bermudians back into the hospitality industry, the lesson needs to be learnt that it takes only one bad experience and we lose those visitors for life. We all have to ensure that each interaction our visitors have with us is positive — from the arrival at the airport to the check-in agent upon departure. It is our bounden duty to make our visitors feel welcome and appreciated. We need them more than they need us.ELSPETH WEISBERGWarwick