A promotion offering cheaper hotel rooms and vouchers for visitors is to be extended through the autumn into winter in an effort to hold market share during the off-season.

Hotels are giving discounts of 25 percent more than in the same ‘Compliments of Bermuda' offer last year, meaning guests will enjoy room rates at 40-50 percent below winter, 2000.

A spending credit of $100 per person on visitors using the promotion has been cut to $100 per booking, so the cash input from the Ministry of Tourism will be reduced.

But the passbook, offering visitors discounts in shops, restaurants, hotels and activities, will now include tear-out vouchers to better track how the promotion is doing.

Details of the programme, involving Tourism, the Chamber of Commerce and Bermuda Hotel Association (BHA) were unveiled at a Chamber meeting in Hamilton yesterday.

BHA president Norman Mastalir said competitor resorts will continue discounting heavily to attract visitors in the wake of the September 11 slump, so the Island had to keep the promotion to retain market share.

The ‘Compliments of Bermuda' programme was launched last fall to spur bookings after the September 11 attacks, offering room discounts of up to 35 percent, and a $100 spending credit. The promotion attracted an extra 4,026 visitors, the Chamber meeting heard.

The summer version of the promotion continued room discounts and a free flight for a companion booking through Bermuda's retail tour partners. It generated an extra 5,130 people.

Mr. Mastalir said yesterday: “Everyone is still heavily discounting and it seems to be what is driving the consumer.

“Our first objective is to make sure we keep our market share and we hope that the offer will prove strong enough to generate extra traffic this winter as we did last year.”

Acting Tourism Minister, Sen. David Burch said: “Everyone was keen to see the process continue and we agreed to extend it to April next year.

“The results from the summer are better than the fall into spring and we hope there will be further increases.”

Chamber President Charles Gosling added: “The programme last winter went quite well for the companies that participated. It was a real shot in the arm and benefited a lot of stores.”

The booking window is September 1 to March 31, 2003, and the vacation must be taken between November 1, 2002 and April 7, 2003.

The meeting yesterday heard leisure travel will remain soft in the fall and winter, and be extremely sensitive to pricing.

The last minute booking trend will continue, and demand for luxury goods will be slack because of the US economic slump.

Corporate and incentive travel is not expected to return to pre-September 11 levels until well into 2003 because of poor earning forecasts among Fortune 500 companies.