If Bermudian tourism entrepreneur Dendrick Taylor had his way Morgan?s Point would by now be on its way to becoming a mixture of a hotel resort and housing with both an affordable and seniors? element.

He even has concept plans that give a glimpse of what could be. But his bid to create a home-grown tourism initiative for the sprawling, disused former naval annex has, to date, been un-remarked upon by Government.

Despite this lack of acknowledgement, Mr. Taylor is determined to continue his pursuit of an Island-led tourism drive he believes would restore Bermudian pride and ingenuity and be preferable to forever seeking developers and marketing companies from overseas.

His plans for Morgan?s Point would be backed by overseas companies, but crucially he would ensure a strong Bermudian involvement on Island.

In his scheme there is a mega cruise ship terminal, two five-star hotels, a yacht marina, nautical park, shopping mall and ?quality affordable homes for Bermudians? including seniors? homes for rents in the region of $500 to $1,000 per month.

?Morgan?s Point is a real challenge. I bounced the idea off some of the overseas partnerships that I?m involved with and they said if the Government was interested they were prepared to develop it at no cost to Bermuda,? said Mr. Taylor, who is president of First Ocean Marketing.

?All they required was a 100-year lease. They were quite serious,? he added. ?I impressed upon them the need to offer Bermudians and Bermudian companies a slice of the pie and follow certain construction and labour rules.

?We selected one of the top construction companies in the world who would be liable for shipping the resources for the development of the project. We wanted to use it as a model of how we should develop.?

Mr. Taylor said the plan was presented to Government last September, but other than a letter from Works and Engineering Minister Sen. David Burch saying he would get back to him, there has been no further acknowledgement.

?The Minister has said he has plans for Morgan?s Point. I thought it was important for Bermuda to know what we had to offer.?

Explaining his route into the tourism business, Mr. Taylor said: ?Twenty years ago I was in private business and I saw tourism going down. This was at a time when international business had not clicked in. I was feeling the pinch and I didn?t want it to happen to anyone else.?

His background includes involvement in a former disco in St. George?s, a restaurant and sports fishing business. He also worked his way up in the hotel industry from a busboy to management level.

Mr. Taylor moved to Florida and formed his company in Fort Lauderdale in the 1990s and from there made professional contacts with a number of companies in the US and Europe involved in the luxury super yacht holiday market.

Mr. Taylor, who is now back living on the Island, has ambitions to bring to Bermuda a luxury cruiser that can attract the calibre of guests willing to pay upwards of $1 million for a holiday break.

He believes it is important to the social fabric of Bermuda to have tourism back in place so young people who do not have the academic skills to go into international business can be directed away from a potential life of low pay, joblessness and crime and instead be actively employed in Bermudian-driven tourism projects.

According to Mr. Taylor this would keep them ?stabilised? and productive and the economy balanced.

He is working on getting permission for a luxury super yacht to offer high-end market holidays in Bermuda. It is one of the ideas tied into his own five-year national tourism plan that has been periodically presented to the Government of the day since the mid-90s.

He made a short presentation on the plan to Tourism Minister Ewart Brown last April, but this has not resulted in any approach to develop his ideas.

And he says his company was not offered a shot at the three-year tourism marketing contract that has subsequently been awarded to US-based GlobalHue.

His company has lodged a complaint with the ombudsman?s office to look into how it was overlooked when contract bids were being sought.

At the heart of the matter, says Mr. Taylor, is his belief that, just as immigration rules stipulate that a job cannot be given to a foreign worker if there is a Bermudian willing and able to fill the post, so it should follow within the tourism industry that contracts for marketing and tourism-related developments should favour Bermudian-led initiatives.