Hotelier David Dodwell has been a member of parliament for 13 years and he hopes his dedication to the tourism industry and constituency concerns will enable him to win another term.

Mr. Dodwell owns the award winning Reefs Hotel on South Shore.

The hotel has continually topped visitor's choice list including this year's Reader's Choice Awards in the Conde Nast Traveller Magazine where it placed in the top five Atlantic Ocean resorts.

It was also named in Forbes Travellers top 400 hotels and resorts around the world.

He has been busy canvasing the last few months and said he plans resolving the Scenic Heights through-traffic problem and dealing with congestion and cleanliness problems at Jews Bay dock.

He has also pledged to clean up the Railway Trial, deal with poorly surfaced roads and identify and eliminate drug houses in Southampton East Central.

He also said he believes strongly in economic empowerment and began raising the issue three years ago in the House of Assembly.

Mr. Dodwell has been a vocal opponent to clumping all visitor air arrivals into one number, he believes the data should specify the purpose of the visit.

Up until recently the Department of Tourism released the net figure and trumpeted increases in air arrivals as a tourism success.

He said that it was incorrect to state that an increase in businessmen and women flying to the Island was a direct success for the Department.

He argued that their travel to the Island had more to do with the strength of the international business sector than the appeal of Bermuda's advertising strategy or the increase of low cost airlines.

Currently his hotel is undergoing an expansion, which he said was driven by the expressed demands of guests and because he was competing against hotels around the globe.

The development is similar to the Tucker's Point facility which allows fractional ownership of 19 two and three-bedroom units.

But the expansion has been used in speeches by Premier Ewart Brown to take a dig at Mr. Dodwell's concerns about the tourism industry.

"Has anyone noticed the construction on South Shore," Dr. Brown asked at a Sandys constituency meeting last week. "Tourism is in such a bad state that Mr. Dodwell is doing millions of dollars worth of renovations."

The comment gained many laughs and cheers and has been picked up on PLP blogs and the party's website.

But yesterday, Mr. Dodwell said the expansion had little to do current state of tourism and more to do with his belief in his product and the future of tourism.

He added that the process has been a long time coming, he started four years ago.

Because he did not apply for a Special Development Order it took a long time to get the planning approval, he said.

"I believe in the future of tourism and in Bermuda in a product," he said. "I want tourism to be successful and I believe in the long term success of tourism under the UBP.

"Isn't it ironic that we are the only hotel that have started? He goes on about all of these brands coming to the Island but we are the only ones that have broken ground."

Mr. Dodwell attended Saltus Grammar School and spent summers working in a hotel storeroom before heading off to the Ivy League school Cornell University where he received a BS in Hotel Administration.

He then returned to Bermuda to work as front office manager at Cambridge Beaches; and in 1972, aged 24, was appointed as manager of The Reefs hotel, where he would soon find himself with a 20 percent stake in what was then a 43-room resort.

In 1981 he was offered a larger stake and his rise in the hotel industry continued.

Mr. Dodwell is a father of five, two of his children have followed in his footsteps in the tourism industry and his second wife Margarita is involved in The Reefs as well.