businesses.

On Friday, Shadow Tourism Minister Mr. David Allen announced to the House of Assembly that he had been told from a reliable source that one guest house and a block of apartments were set to stop operating.

And he launched a broadside on Government's tourism policy, arguing smaller businesses were going to the wall because of Government neglect.

Mr. Allen refused to identify the two businesses, but The Royal Gazette understands that one is a block of holiday apartments consisting of about 20 units. The other is a guest house which rents out about three units. It is not known how many job losses the closures will cause.

Yesterday Mr. Allen claimed the new closures were indicative of the problems smaller hotels were facing.

He said: "I am concerned at the number of smaller businesses that might fall by the wayside in the coming months.

"If we are getting this sort of thing happening now, in November, what is it going to be like in March? "The problem is that many of the smaller hotels and guest houses haven't been able to build up the layer of fat that will see them through the winter.

"This year was particularly bad with some of the bigger hotels only recording about 70 percent occupancy. That means you don't get the overflow effect where people go to smaller properties.

"We feel Government is neglecting the smaller guest houses and something has to be done to stem this trend. The Government should be doing more to support them.'' But Tourism Minister Mr. David Dodwell defended Government's policy.

"We continue to challenge ourselves at the Ministry as to how we can support a broad cross-section of properties in Bermuda from the small guest house to the Southampton Princess.

"An example of this is our "Inns of Bermuda'' programme. It's in our interest to promote a five-room guest house as well as the bigger hotels because although some people might be able to afford the money to stay at the Princess, others might not.''