Maritime Museum director Dr. Edward Harris came out with guns blazing yesterday as he called upon Bermuda to stop knocking its tourism industry.

He called for more investment in the Island's heritage in order to grow cultural tourism - which he said was the fastest growing sector of the international economy.

And he said it was time to reinvest in tourism, which he said had created the foundation for the prosperous Bermuda of today, but was often treated as the poor relation when it came to finance.

"It is the monuments of the past and their evolution into this unique landscape that make Bermuda, Bermuda, not the ticker tapes of the stock exchanges," he said. "Heritage is tourism and vice versa; the death knell of one is the nail in the coffin of the other. Those who are busy tolling the bells for the funeral of tourism, should well remember to "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee".

"Many of us who are in tourism could easily begin to think that we are the poorest of poor cousins in the economy of this country.

"Tourism is perhaps the largest industry in the world, and many countries, particularly small ones like ours are dependent upon its continued health. Having, again as many of us have, spent half a lifetime in devoted an unpaid service to tourism by way of working in the field of preservation and heritage scholarship, it is galling, to say the least, to read the papers of the purported "terminal decline of tourism" and such negative expressions.

"Flying in the face of proven figures on cultural tourism elsewhere, that this sector of tourism is becoming the fastest growing part of the international economy, we continue to ignore heritage, to denigrate the tourism trade, and thus all who work in it, and with the help of negative press, to fulfil the self-fulfilling prophecy that `tourism is dead'."

Dr. Harris said the Island had some of the finest monuments and possessed all the necessary assets for making cultural tourism a success, but said funding was needed to protect heritage.

"Heritage preservation is essential to the future of tourism and we must be given our fair share of the tax and private sector donation dollars in order to carry out the task at hand.

"Since the World War Two, this Island has enjoyed a quality of life and quantity of cash that are the envy of many. That profit came largely from tourism; that profit came largely from the heritage assets of our historical monuments, yet the reinvestment in those assets has been negligible."

He added that the cost of preserving St. George's as a World Heritage Site, and a local legacy, would be higher now because of a lack of investment over the years.