"Tourism economies must provide superior service, create uniqueness and become obsessed with listening to consumers.'' "...provide that total quality tourism product in order to compete with other destinations like the Bahamas, Aruba and Cuba.'' "You have an excellent product today but improvements can be made and you have to be ready to make changes in the 90s.''M "Tourism is different in the 90s than it was in the 80s and the 1980s were considered a growth period marked by excesses.'' "People (in the 1980s) travelled for the opportunity to go somewhere else.

Visitors of the 90s are different. They are looking for something else.'' That something else includes cultural diversity, specialised travel that offers flexibility and variety, and often rural tourism.

"A lot of people look for special sporting events like fishing, golf and scuba diving. But they also want the historic aspects of visiting another culture and the opportunity to participate is becoming more important.'' "In order for tourism economies to thrive in the 90s, they must be able to adjust to chaotic changes.'' "The kinds of tourists we are seeing take vacations today is changing. We are now seeing retirees who have the time and money taking their grandchildren on vacation with them.'' "Forty-five percent of business and pleasure travel today is by women and the rate is growing. Women are travelling in pairs or groups, while two-worker households are taking shorter trips.'' "The World Tourism Organisation expects international tourism to grow 50 percent by the year 2000. We have to seek to develop a better tourism product to seek to develop those visitors.'' "You must learn to take advantage of promotional activities to make sure our product is out front.'' "Cuba now has several hotel investors from the United Kingdom and they are starting to go into tourism. We will be competing together and we need to outrun the competition. If we are not ahead of it, we will have difficulty.'' If this sounds exactly like another editorial on Bermuda's tourism from The Royal Gazette it is not. Does it pertain to Bermuda? Of course, but it is taken from a speech by Mr. David L. Edgell, senior executive director of the US Travel and Tourism Administration delivered to a tourism assessment seminar at Frechman's Reef Beach Resort in the US Virgin Islands. It was reported in The Daily News of the Virgin Islands.

It is quite amazing how similar the remarks are to any number of editorials in this newspaper during the past year on Bermuda's tourism. Bermuda is not alone in trying to grapple with the future of tourism but it may be getting behind.

We don't recall any tourism assessment seminars in Bermuda designed to include all participants in the tourism economy but such a seminar might well be very helpful in these trying times.