Nineteen-ninety-four will surely be remembered as the year crime against tourists came to a head, eroding our reputation for safety and sending hoteliers and Government -- better late than never -- scrambling for new ideas to combat crooks. A Government crime team and a hotelier's importation of specially trained vicious dogs from overseas were the latest tactics.

It was also a year of great disappointment.

While nearly all the Island's competitors to the south enjoyed bumper tourism years, Bermuda sputtered to what was described by the Tourism Minister, in somewhat of an understatement, as a "disappointing'' finish.

As of December 25, the final week before the end of 1994, tourism stood a meagre four percent ahead of last year, Finance Ministry figures showed.

And the number of supposedly big-spending air visitors was up barely a percentage point over last year after a 12.5 percent plunge in arrivals over Christmas week.

The numbers were a blow to Tourism Minister the Hon. CV (Jim) Woolridge who at the start of the year had been anticipating an increase of about 10 percent after a first-quarter arrivals jumped 23 percent.

Things started to go wrong around May when "tourism setbacks'', "big drops'' and "falls'' in visitor arrivals were reported.

Funnily enough, May was when Bermuda was once again rocked by a hotel strike causing, in the short-term, some cancelled bookings and angry visitors, Unionised hotel workers were upset over what they claimed were their tips going into hoteliers' pockets to offset rising operating costs. The two-day strike ended on May 28 after the Supreme Court declared it illegal.

Then came the news that another chance for Bermuda to get a new hotel had fallen through: Plans for a luxurious Four Seasons-flag hotel at the planned Bermuda Financial Centre were scrapped.

"Deeply disappointed'', the Tourism Minister complained at the time, "We've not had a new hotel physical plant since 1972, meanwhile, some of the properties are a little on the tired side.'' As he spoke, the old Club Med hotel continued to lie empty with no end in sight to Government's legal action against the owners.

It mustn't be forgotten that there was some good news in tourism.

Mr. Woolridge finally secured a European link with Germany-based Condor Airlines.

British Airways added a fourth flight for next year and Continental and US Air said they were introducing bigger planes on certain routes in 1995.

As of November, Bermuda looked set for a record number of visitors from the United Kingdom having already hosted more than 26,000 Britons this year.

Tourism officials attributed the growth in UK business to a second year of "aggressive'' advertising, an increase in tour operator activity and additional airline seats from British Airways.

The UK and European results -- also up -- stood in contrast to a stagnating situation in the United States.

In some bitter-sweet news, local shoppers lost their American Airlines' link with the discount outlets and mega-malls of Raleigh-Durham, but Mr. Woolridge tried to console them with news they would be able to fly direct to nearby Charlotte in North Carolina next year when US Air launches a daily service starting on May 7. And there was still hope that American Airlines would launch a Miami-Bermuda flight, he said.

And thanks to a sports marketing push, Bermuda played host to a series of prestigious tourism-boosting international events including the World Rugby Classic, the Merrill Lynch Shoot-out, the Black Masters Golf Tournament, and the Omega Gold Cup yachting regatta, which all paid big publicity dividends.

The biggest bright spot was the booming cruise season (cruise ship visitors were up 12.4 percent for the season) and the bumper first-year performance of the long-awaited St. George's ship Royal Majesty which debuted on May 31.

However, all this was viewed by Tourism as a mixed blessing.

There appeared to be growing evidence that Bermuda's thriving cruise ship industry was eating up lucrative air arrivals, Ministry officials said at a tourism forum last month.

A Tourism study of US North-East air arrivals showed they began dipping when the Royal Majesty made her debut in May, and continued to plunge over the summer, finishing several percentage points below the previous year, a statistician said.

"It's a decision made by Government and I have to work with it,'' was Mr.

Woolridge's response.

Perhaps the biggest event on the tourism front was the summer outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease on board the cruise liner Horizon , which received widespread media attention on the US east coast and made national news after a passenger died in July.

The outbreak sent cruise arrivals and local shop sales revenues plummeting but only for the short time the Horizon was out of service.

The fiasco elevated the stress levels of hotel and travel agency staff who had to work around the clock to find rooms for hundreds of displaced cruise passengers at the Island's hotels during the high season after the ship was evacuated.

Celebrity Cruises was able to get the ship back into commission after just one-and-a-half missed trips so it could undergo flushing and disinfecting of its water systems. Despite the negative publicity, she managed to return nearly full with only the on-deck whirlpools, where the water-droplet-transmitted bug was eventually found, out of use.

In the end, the US Centers for Disease Control concluded that up to 50 passengers were infected with the pneumonia-like disease on Bermuda-New York trips between April and July.

Fears that the outbreak would frighten away cruise travellers appeared to be unfounded.

Of course, the tourism year wouldn't be complete without a bit of controversy.

The year started with a wrangle over some new Tourism Ministry brochures containing an offensive "benign'' slavery comment. But things quickly died down once the offending materials were withdrawn.

In autumn, continued copycat advertising by rival tourist destinations including Aruba and the British Virgin Islands prompted Tourism to change the look of its three-year-old `Bermuda Shorts' campaign featuring dreamy scenes and clips of local life.

Marketing director Mr. Peter Smith said the new-look ads would hit the market next spring. The ads were also being "fine-tuned'', he said as a result of market information gleaned from a series of surveys of Bermuda visitors and visitors to other destinations.

More emphasis would be placed on value, beaches and rest and relaxation.

Images and references to culture and history would be downplayed slightly.

He noted a "did you get your money's worth?'' question posed in the airport exit survey had registered at 76 percent this spring.

The year ended with some bold statements by an elusive British travel expert.

Mr. Jonathan deRin declared at a Government forum in November that Bermuda's main market, the well-heeled traveller, was gone, and it was time it explored other travel markets such as gambling and the billion-dollar eco-tourism industry. "Why not casinos here?,'' he asked.

His comments caused Mr. Woolridge to again trample the idea of a Bermuda casino and for the record, he opposed a national lottery as well.

As for eco-tourism, Bermuda already offered it, he said.

Noting the Cayman Islands was seeing its second record tourism year in a row, Shadow Tourism Minister Mr. David Allen called for Bermuda to start marketing itself as part of the popular Caribbean to drum up business.

But Mr. Woolridge maintained there were good reasons for the fall-off, including a "tremendous'' price cutting spree in the Caribbean, the effect of the US mid-term elections, and possibly the new St. George's cruise ship out of Boston this summer.

It was around October that the crime problem came to a head following warnings in July from hoteliers, Mr. Allen and US Consul General Mr. Joseph O'Neill.

Before he left Bermuda in July, Mr. O'Neill had warned that if the often violent thievery continued, "Word will get back to the US and people will not differentiate between Bermuda and some crime-ridden tourist place.'' Mr.

Allen, predicting Caribbean-style security-compound resorts replacing the Island's charming guest cottages, blamed Police cuts for fuelling the problem.

In October, angered by yet another visiting couple's holiday being ruined by thieves, former Government Senator the Hon. Michael Winfield, managing director of Cambridge Beaches, called on the Premier to take action before it was too late to save the precious industry.

His request for the appointment of a special Cabinet committee on crime was eventually granted when the Hon. Sir John Swan last month quietly asked the Hon J. Irving Pearman to head up such a team.

Meanwhile, outspoken hotelier Mr. C.W. (Toppy) Cowen arranged a meeting with Governor Lord Waddington to discuss the matter.

And then in late November, Mr. Woolridge announced the crime wave had caused a rethink in the way Bermuda was going to be promoted overseas.

The Island could no longer be plugged so heavily as a safe destination, he said, adding. "We don't want to be accused of false advertising.'' Tourism would be "soft-pedalling'' the safety part of the advertising campaign, he said. "We will do so until we can come to grips with crime, even though Bermuda is still one of the safest countries in the world.'' Mr.

Woolridge said the changes would be reflected in the new advertising campaign next year.

The announcement came after a spate of violent crimes, including armed robberies and the Spinning Wheel Night Club double shooting in which two teenagers were injured by a gunman.

Statistics were also showing that handbag snatching had rocketed over the last year.

A subsequent Police report that three guests were robbed in one night bringing the number of hotel break-ins for the week to 22 prompted a warning from Mr.

Woolridge that Bermuda's good reputation and high standard of living were in jeopardy if criminals continued to prey on visitors.

He appealed to criminals to "stop and think of the consequences of their actions''. "It is regrettable because even one incident of this kind is damaging to Bermuda's reputation.'' Overall arrivals between January 1 and December 25 stood at 585,923, or four percent ahead of 1993.

TOUGH YEAR -- Tourism Minister the Hon. C.V. (Jim) Woolridge.