Hotels must keep staff morale high if guests are to get the best service and the business is to succeed, one of the world's leading management consultants said yesterday.

Roger Cline, the director of the hospitality consultancy service at Andersen World-wide, was speaking at the opening session of the second Bermuda National Tourism Conference at the Fairmont Southampton Princess.

The conference, "People, Process, and Technology: Planning for the Future," has attracted leading international speakers from the hospitality and management world.

At the opening ceremony, Premier Jennifer Smith and Tourism Minister David Allen emphasised the importance of people to making tourism a success.

Ms Smith said: "The development of human capital is essential for the rejuvenation of our industry. We all need to reinvent ourselves and the way we operate in the 21st century." Mr. Cline said hotels were good at evaluating their physical assets such as buildings but not at assessing the value of people, even though they are seen as central to success.

In spite of the hospitality industry recognising the central importance of people, most human resources managers were seen as administrators and very few reported directly to the chief executive officer.

And most hospitality company books were incomplete because they listed people, a major asset, as liabilities under payroll.

"If the hospitality industry is ever to manage these intangibles (such as people) it will need to find new and innovative ways to measure this," said Mr. Cline.

A world-wide Andersen hospitality survey in 2000 found many hotels didn't think their training was working well.

And many suggested improving workers' wages and working conditions and improving information to staff as keys to reducing the industry's notoriously high turnover rates.

Tackling staff morale was essential if customers are to be satisfied at a hotel and want to return.

"Unless we deal with employee satisfaction, consumers won't achieve the level of satisfaction that is required," he said. "Yet few measure this." Mary Helen Reece, the director of standards at Jamaica's Tourism Product Development Company, said tourism was taught in every school in the country.

Jamaica realised the central importance of every person on the island realising that tourism plays an important part in the economy.

"We are going to teach tourism from the cradle to the grave," said Mrs. Reece, who is a Bermudian.

Bonita Morgan, the director of Human Resources at the Caribbean Tourism Organisation said research showed it was important to improve workers' wages and conditions to keep them motivated.