Four people who fostered closer links among people originally from Africa were honoured on Monday night at the banquet to end the African Diaspora Heritage Trail conference.

The first awards, named after Hilton Hill II who pioneered tourism among blacks in Bermuda and abroad, were given out at the dinner at the Fairmont Southampton Princess.

The first award was given posthumously to Mr. Hill, a Bermudian civil rights activist who helped found the Africa Travel Association and the Caribbean Tourism Organisation.

His wife Georgine, who received the award, said: "I hope that what he dreamed of will continue in the work of the people of the African Diaspora."

Mira Berman, the executive director of the Africa Travel Association, Sharifa Burnette, of Alken Tours in Brooklyn, New York, who formerly worked for the Kenya Tourist Board, and Bermudian Dr. Pauulu Kamarakafego (Roosevelt Browne) won the other awards.

Dr. Kamarakafego said in the past white Bermudians in the tourist industry subtly kept the races apart by directing Jews and non-whites to certain hotels and guest houses. He said rather than refer to their names, they would call the different groups oleanders, lilies, or hibiscuses.

Guest speaker Dr. Roiyah Saltus Blackwood said tourism in the past had been closely linked to racial segregation.

The 1930 Innkeepers Act gave hotel and guest house managers the right to turn away people they deemed "undesirable" and also affected where people could work in tourism.

Until it was amended in 1960, it affected the rights of non-whites to work in tourism, said Dr. Blackwood.

As social engineering had been used in the past to promote racism in tourism, it should be used again the eliminate this discrimination.

Promoting black tourism would make all Bermudians more aware of their heritage, help regenerate tourism and promote a Bermuda that was more inclusive, she said.

This would "promote a local industry that is rooted in all our community groups and I am not sure if there was ever such an opportunity for this initiative on the Island".