break where and when we can. This is a new era. The recession has taught people, especially our hard-hit American visitors, to look for value for money. That sensitivity to being gouged is not going to stop. Visitors will look for good value here and if they do not find it here, they will try to find it somewhere else.

Complaints about Grotto Bay Hotel making a profit on Government bus tickets must have sent a shudder through the Ministry of Tourism. It is, of course, exactly the kind of thing which gives Bermuda a bad name and which leads visitors to feel ripped-off. That can be coupled with a repeat visitor's complaints about high telephone charges at the Belmont Hotel. To make matters worse, it comes at a time when surveys in the West Indies indicate that Bermuda is the most expensive resort, even though fares to get here may be lower.

All of us must have wondered these last few years why tourism began its decline almost without any of us noticing. There has been a tendency to blame the decline on labour problems and to identify the problem as arising from the bad publicity generated by the "general strike'' of 1981 when we closed-up Bermuda and sent visitors home. Labour problems have been a major factor in visitor dissatisfaction because they brought into question the certainty of enjoyment people seek in a vacation. People are not going to come to Bermuda if there is a chance that their expensive holiday will be ruined. No sensible person would do that and no self-respecting travel agent would recommend such a vacation to a client they wished to keep. That is why there is disquiet over the strike threatened at Elbow Beach Hotel when and if it reaches 70 percent occupancy.

But threat of strikes and minor labour disruptions have not been the only problem. Increases in labour costs above the rate of inflation have caused internal inflation and led to high costs for visitors and Bermudians alike.

Bermuda has had huge wage inflation when compared to competing resorts and in the United States, our major market, incomes have declined in recent years.

That is a very difficult situation when you go to sell hotel beds. It's ironic that Bermudians go abroad looking for vacations that are cheaper than they could find at home but expect people to continue to come to Bermuda.

The high costs in Bermuda result in no small measure because of our own high standard of living. We are locked into expectations of high standards because that is what Bermudians came to take for granted in the boom years of tourism.

The only way we can maintain that standard is to provide good value for the high costs and we do not always to that.

Our standard of living will decrease because that is what the recession is doing to the world and we are a victim of economic forces over which we have little control. We have brought internal problems on ourselves and are now faced with clients who are also hard-hit. We have to remember that when we try rip people off with something so simple as Government bus tickets.