New hotel beds expected in the next few years will set the stage for thousands of new air visitors, Tourism Minister David Allen said yesterday.

Mr. Allen said he believed new rooms in developments such as Daniel's Head Village, Pink Beach Club, Palmetto Hotel, a city centre hotel and the renovated Castle Harbour hotel would aid a tourism recovery over the next four years.

He said he hoped work would get underway on Castle Harbour in September, pending vital legislation being passed by the House of Assembly in the summer.

"We are fairly confident that will happen -- for the first part of the accommodations to be open by 2002, and completed by 2003,'' he said.

Previously the Minister said he expected work to begin in the spring, following last November's closure.

Mr. Allen's comments came as he explained where 80,000 extra air visitors, a goal set in his department's North American Integrated Marketing Plan 2000/2001, would come from.

The department aims to achieve that goal over the next four years and Mr.

Allen indicated that Castle Harbour would be at the centre of the push, from 2002 onwards.

"We expect to have significant hotel inventory within that period of time,'' he said.

With his prediction of a 2.5 percent increase in air visitors this year, that would mean substantial gains would have to be made from 2001 onwards.

The Minister also defended criticism of his recent overseas travel and of the lateness of the North American marketing plan.

He said the extra time needed for the plan to come to fruition was to enable consultation with the private sector and Bermuda Tourism Board.

Allen remains optimistic over tourism "If the plan took a little longer than any of us would have preferred, in order to accommodate that process of consultation, then so be it,'' he said.

"In the end we now have a better partnership and a better plan. The community cannot have it both ways.'' And he slammed former Tourism Minister David Dodwell who accused him of ignoring problems on the Island while he was away on foreign trips.

Mr. Allen, speaking days after arriving back on the Island after a trip that included London, Spain and Baltimore, said he saw himself as the "chief national travelling salesman'' for Bermuda.

"We will not attract new business to Bermuda by contemplating our collective navels,'' he said. "Bermuda, with the previous Government, was allowed to fall off the radar screen and fall between the cracks.

"It is up to me to beat the bushes and get people interested in Bermuda again.'' The Minister said he gained hundreds of thousands of dollars of free publicity by his actions.