events away from Marriott's Castle Harbour Resort after last year's sick-bug outbreak.

Main sponsors of the Lobster Pot international golf tournament have switched players' accommodation to Elbow Beach instead of the Castle Harbour resort.

And the five days of golf, in different invitational, pro-am and professional tournaments, will now be played at Port Royal after years at Castle Harbour.

The Coalition for the Protection of Children has also switched its main fundraising event to Elbow Beach after hundreds of its guests also fell ill at the Marriott last year.

Organiser Sheelagh Cooper played down the move, saying: "We just like to shift our business around to keep everybody happy.

"It's our first fundraiser as a new alliance under the name of the Family Resource Network Charitable Trust.

"We arranged a ball last year but this year it's an art auction. Every penny raised this Saturday still goes to treating families so it's much the same as at the Marriott last year.'' More than 400 Marriott guests were hit by a mystery bug after the hotel's water supply was contaminated by sewage from a leaking pipe last Valentine's weekend.

Managers at the Castle Harbour resort are already facing a compensation bill of around $75 million to pay off legal claims.

American lawyers representing US victims are returning to Bermuda in April to press ahead with their cases.

And now the fallout from the outbreak has led to the cancelled conventions.

Fritz Reiter, who runs the Lobster Pot tournament, said the competition had lost several overseas players because of last year's poisoning outbreak.

And he said the event had to be moved to another hotel and course to stop more players from dropping out.

He added: "We kept the problems very quiet last year because we are trying to promote tourism to Bermuda, not to destroy it.

"Most of our participants last year were violently sick, because they were all staying at the Marriott. This move is a result of that.

"It would have been a major problem for us encouraging people to come back if we had stayed in the same hotel.

"So we had no other choice but to move and we did have some feedback from players and I think it would have been a bad thing to stay at the Marriott.

"We are still not going to have a full tournament, mainly because of last year.

"Right now we are probably looking at 24 teams with an average of four players a team, compared to 30 teams last year.

"Those extra players would also have brought wives, girlfriends or families with them.'' The main tournament is the 54-hole Lobster Pot Invitational Pro-Am. The centrepiece competition runs next Monday, Tuesday and Friday.

The Lobster Pot Charity Invitational Pro-Am, which has raised $32,000 in the last six years, takes place on Wednesday.

There is a professionals-only tournament on Thursday. All competitions will take place at Port Royal.

Marriott hotel operations manager David Abraham said: "We have not noticed a substantial drop in our business for this Valentine's weekend.

"Those two pieces of business -- Lobster Pot and the Coalition for the Protection of Children -- were affected by the unfortunate incident last February.

"Aside from that our business looks very good for 1999. But we hope everything goes well for those folks who have arranged different functions.''