Embarrassing mistakes in Tourism’s ‘Go To Bermuda’ promotional website emerged during a lengthy House of Assembly review of the Island’s air arrival figures.The errors were highlighted when Shadow Tourism Minister Pat Gordon-Pamplin tabled a motion in Monday’s House calling for the creation of a Bermuda Tourism Authority.MPs also debated the decline of the Island’s air arrivals since the heyday of Bermuda tourism.Mrs Gordon-Pamplin deemed the ‘Go to Bermuda’ website “wanting”, telling the House: “It’s outdated or incorrect in some of the information.”Among the mistakes she pointed out are that Sir John Vereker was wrongly named as Bermuda’s Governor, Belmont Hills was said to be in Pembroke instead of Warwick, and there was a reference to “the honorary Paula Cox”.“These are things that are easily fixable. And we should be doing that,” said Mrs Gordon-Pamplin.Tourism Minister Patrice Minors thanked her for highlighting the errors and said they would be fixed.As she opened the debate on her ‘take note’ motion, Mrs Gordon-Pamplin said air arrivals have dropped from 490,000 in 1980 to 331,000 in 2000, and 232,000 in recent times.“We heard in 1998 that there would be a 100-day plan for tourism, but that was not to be,” the Shadow Minister said.She added that the focus on international business has created economic imbalance in Bermuda.“Air arrivals contribute significantly greater to the economic pie than cruise ships or any other type of visitor,” the One Bermuda Alliance MP said, noting that 2010 had the lowest air arrival visitors in 30 years.Mrs Gordon-Pamplin called the strikes of 1981 “justified” but said the inconvenience caused to tourists had turned many off the Island.Present-day reports of long lines of tourists waiting for ferries also needed to be dealt with, she said.The Shadow Minister turned to this year’s air arrival figures.Second quarter figures show “a bit of an increase”, she said, but “overall results showed a decrease” telling the House that WestJet had cut its Toronto service, and US Air’s cut to its Philadelphia service later this year would exacerbate the problem.She conceded that the Fairmont Southampton Hotel had lured State Farm convention guests this year.Saying Bermuda was for “newlyweds and nearly-deads”, Mrs Gordon-Pamplin said visitors would spend their money here when there was something on offer but most shops close at five and don’t open on Sundays.Horseshoe Bay was “attempting to do something with the beach pavilion”, she said, “but the whole thing is taking too long”.Mrs Gordon-Pamplin said a Tourism Authority would present a modern way for managing the Island’s tourism industry.“It’s a business, with a results-oriented executive who are held accountable,” she said, adding that it could be funded from Bermuda’s occupancy tax.Listing Bermuda’s various slogans over the years, the Shadow Minister charged: “We are lacking continuity.”Ideas from a recent Shadow Tourism Board meeting included promoting Bermuda’s sports tourism, such as an international triathlon in conjunction with the Caribbean Tourism Organisation, and pushing the Island as a scuba destination.Noting that “athletes don’t come here to be entertained”, Mrs Gordon-Pamplin said Bermuda could sell itself as a training ground for National Collegiate Athletic Association groups from the US East Coast.She then unveiled a concept of ‘Beautiful, Bermudaful You’: promoting the Island as a plastic surgery destination close to the US.In her reply, Tourism Minister Patrice Minors noted that in speaking of the “decline” in annual air visitors, Mrs Gordon-Pamplin “seemed stretched to support her position”.High oil prices had a serious impact on air travel for the first six months of 2011, she said.However, the Tourism Minister also reported that the last two quarters marked the first occasion since 2005 that Bermuda saw two consecutive quarters with an increase in arrivals and that the Island had outperformed several competitors, such as the Cayman Islands, St Lucia and the US Virgin Islands, during the first four months of this year.Mrs Minors also said hotels showed a three percent increase in room occupancy for the second quarter ending in June.Advance booking figures are also up, she continued: six percent for July, and 19 percent for August.“Yes, US Airways has made the decision to cut back airlift in October,” Mrs Minors conceded. “We are therefore pushed to make ourselves more attractive during the slower months.”Bermuda’s National Tourism Plan remains a work in progress with the Tourism Board. Following on the two-day brainstorming retreat in April, “hot button items” such as hotel development, airlift and gaming will go before the public next month to obtain feedback that will go toward the drafting of a Cabinet Paper.The Minister went on to say that Bermuda enjoyed strong sales and marketing in North America, and a “high-profile presence” in the US.UK radio personalities had been brought to the Island for Bermuda Day to broadcast, she said, and representatives from eight CBS radio networks from the US East Coast are to visit Bermuda in August.And the ‘Feel the Love rewards’ campaign launched 12 months ago had successfully recruited Bermudians into becoming ambassadors to increase visitor numbers.Mrs Minors said of calls for a Tourism Authority: “This is a hot button item that the Tourism Board has considered in its committee and will present to me.“It would be foolhardy for me not to consider the various hot button issues being considered by the board. Am I closed to a tourism authority? I can say no, because I need to see the wealth of information that either justifies it or goes against it.”She took issue with the Opposition saying there has been a decline in annual visitor arrivals, saying this is inaccurate in her view, bearing in mind figures seen in recent months.Mrs Minors added that tourism needs to be turned around collectively, and a Tourism Authority is not a panacea.United Bermuda Party leader Kim Swan thanked Mrs Gordon-Pamplin for bringing the debate to the House.He said a Tourism Authority was mooted in the dying days of the United Bermuda Party Government, before the Progressive Labour Party’s election triumph in 1998.According to Mr Swan: “We must take the politics out of tourism.”He went on to cite various ideas that could help boost tourism. These included Bermuda chartering private jets to bring tourists from various regions of the United States that are not serviced by commercial routes. He explained that when he was younger, he dreamed of running such an enterprise and calling it Swan Airlines.He also suggested Bermuda should capitalise on the Mid West market in the United States because the climate there gets colder quickly in the Fall, and locals are willing to fly direct to Hawaii to get some sun, so they could be attracted to Bermuda.Deputy Premier Derrick Burgess spoke of the importance of having five-star resorts in Bermuda. He said this is because “it’s so expensive to support three-star destinations you can’t have too many of those.”For this reason he said “we would want a very affluent type of guest that comes into Bermuda” and Government brought in hotel tax concessions to encourage them to upgrade.He said new luxury resorts should be encouraged and slammed those who have spoken out against them.Shadow Environment Minister Cole Simons complained Government had never brought a tourism plan to the House, prompting Government Minister Zane DeSilva to interject that Government had produced a three-year plan in 2005 that made 2007 the best year in 20 years.Mr Simons insisted that a tourism plan had never been tabled in Parliament, causing Mr DeSilva to call out from his seat: “It was brought to this House, and that’s a fact.”Mr Simons went on to ask what the ethos is for Bermuda Tourism. He suggested the slogan “Feel the Love” has not worked and that perhaps “Body, Mind and Spirit” or “Paradise is Calling” should be considered instead.He went on to speak of how vacant rental properties and homes in Bermuda could be rented out to tourists. He said Bermudians do this in Europe, paying $500 per week to rent a property with a swimming pool and maid service.Youth, Families and Sports Minister Glenn Blakeney complained there has been a lack of commitment to the Bermudianisation of the tourism industry.He said: “I’m tired and hurt no one is standing up for those Bermudians who can do those jobs. Are you telling me a Bermudian can’t wash a pot, clean a bathroom, make a bed?”He suggests there has been “disingenuousness” over this “because there’s a lack of honest brokers who are the stakeholders.He named exceptions as David Dodwell at The Reefs and Mike Winfield at Cambridge Beaches, who he said both treat Bermudians well and have long-term employees.Mr Blakeney added that travellers were more discerning, which put Bermuda at a disadvantage in terms of cost.“We have to be creative in getting into the psyche, to making them know that they are welcome,” he said. “And that’s what our good (Tourism) Minister is all about.”He lambasted Mr Simons for “undermining the Minister” after being invited to take part in the April retreat to work on the National Tourism Plan. “There is disingenuousness on all sides,” Mr Blakeney said.The Minister did not take a side on the issue of whether or not a Tourism Authority would serve Bermuda well, saying: “I don’t think we need to reinvent the wheel.”PLP MP Wayne Furbert then caused a ripple of surprise after reciting a litany of negative headlines on the state of Bermudian tourism.“Those headlines are from 1992 to 1994,” Mr Furbert said. “There has been a decline for a very, very long time.”He told the House that Bermuda could not expect a return to the high numbers of its glory days when there were not enough hotel beds.“We’re too busy comparing with yesterday,” he said, calling for “more beds, more hotels, more capital, and a unified front”.Mr Furbert voiced his support for a Tourism Authority, but added: “That’s not going to solve all our problems.”Health Minister Zane DeSilva listed off the low-cost airline services that had been enticed to Bermuda under the PLP Government.He hit back at a remark in Mrs Gordon-Pamplin’s presentation that Bermuda needed to encourage Chinese investment such as was being seen in the Bahamas.“Members of the other side of the House bashed our Premier for taking a trip to China a few years ago,” he said.Mr DeSilva railed against Bermudians “shooting developers down”, saying: “If someone wants to do a development at the former Club Med site that looks ‘cookie-cutter’ but creates three or four hundred jobs for my fellow Bermudians”, he would support the idea.And he questioned why the previous Government had never seen fit to create a Tourism Authority.“Since 1998, that’s all we have heard,” Mr DeSilva said.“I’m not against a Tourism Authority either. But a Tourism Authority is not a guaranteed solution. What Bermuda needs is new hotels.”Referring to the Bermuda Environmental Sustainability Taskforce, he added: “I thank the Lord that BEST were not around in the 1930s, or we wouldn’t have had any golf courses.”OBA MP Louise Jackson spoke next, telling the House: “Hotel owners have given me a message.”Saying that she spoke for investors, Ms Jackson said: “They feel we should be managing a campaign to find investors.”She said investors felt Bermuda should be more proactive in getting investors, and should explore financing operations that would help hotels to make a profit as well as making immigration more friendly.”Investors also felt Bermuda should manage its labour costs better, she said, since labour costs ran at 70 percent in Bermuda versus 30 percent in the Caribbean.PLP MP Randy Horton rose to list Bermuda’s favourable qualities as a tourist destination, concluding: “We have in Bermuda an absolute jewel that sits in the middle of the Atlantic. People who come here love it.”Looking back on 1980s tourism, he went on, “the eye was taken off the tourism ball”.“We need hotel development. The industry is not going to get much better without it,” he said.On the matter of the 1981 industrial action, Mr Horton recalled US visitors telling him their home country suffered similar problems.The Southampton West MP praised Mrs Gordon-Pamplin’s international triathlon idea, and said Bermuda offered excellent golfing opportunities, as well as possibilities to tap into North American soccer.“College Weeks will never come back,” he said but Bermuda could court college sports teams, and attract alumni as well.Mr Horton also said Bermuda ought to attract wealthy retiree visitors.“By 2015, the US baby boomers will account for 60 percent of the nation’s wealthy,” Mr Horton said. “That’s a demographic we can reach out for.”Turning to the question of a Tourism Authority, Mr Horton questioned what organisational structure it would have.He said the Bermuda Alliance for Tourism was a public-private partnership “which does much of what a Tourism Authority might do”.Junior Tourism Minister Marc Bean took the baton next, telling the House: “A Tourism Authority means different things for different people. But they are all reliant on Government. So I have to ask the Opposition, who are adamant that we need a Tourism Authority: just what do you mean?”The Warwick South Central MP said he was not against such a body.“I am a person who advocates free market principles,” he said, which would mean “putting the responsibility for tourism in the hands of the stakeholders”.But, he added: “Who would fund the Tourism Authority?”Mr Bean said he didn’t see how Bermuda could have a Tourism Authority and still depend on Government funding.“What I have noticed as the Junior Minister for Tourism I don’t see hotels taking the initiative to market themselves in the markets abroad.”Mr Bean moved on to insist on a widening of the Town Cut passage to accommodate larger cruise ships for St George’s.He sharply criticised ‘Cave’ people, or “Citizens Against Virtually Everything”, when it came to encouraging development.Mr Bean said WestJet’s decision to cut its Toronto service had simply been a sound business choice.He called for Bermuda to tap into the Florida market more, in cities such as Tampa and West Palm Beach, saying: “The wealthy baby-boomers are there, too.”Asking how Bermuda stood to attract more UK visitors, Mr Bean said it made good sense to get Bermuda included on a multi-destination route used by Virgin or British Midland.Mr Bean told the House that Bermuda should pay more attention to the Latin American market as well, observing that Copa Airlines now serves Nassau from Panama City and that the Bahamas encouraged the learning of Spanish at home.“We need to free up,” Mr Bean concluded, saying that wealthy American travellers would go “where the action is”.“What they did at Woodstock and at college, they still do today. They just want discretion,” he said.“If we don’t offer them what they want, with discretion, others will offer it to them.”