work in the new luxury Tucker's Point Club, the operator of the new resort promised yesterday.

Rosewood Hotels and Resorts president James Brown said his company, which yesterday was confirmed as the official manager of the project, is eager to train Bermudians from scratch for the resort, which will open in 2003 at the site of the Marriott Castle Harbour.

That will mean that from this Autumn, some could be sent to Rosewood resorts in the Caribbean or Mexico to learn excellence in service.

Mr. Brown revealed he has already been contacted by some Bermudian managing directors working overseas who are keen to return to the Island to work in the new $250 million development.

He was speaking in New York after Rosewood's US media launch at the Big Apple's top restaurant, Daniel, where Democrat Presidential candidate Al Gore held a $1 million fund-raising event last year.

He told The Royal Gazette he would rather take raw staff and train them to Rosewood standards, rather than poach hospitality staff from other properties.

He said he would like to send some staff to Rosewood's Las Ventanas Al Paraiso resort in Los Cabos, Mexico, which has recently topped most travel publications' surveys for quality and service.

"I would rather staff didn't come from other properties -- I'd rather we trained them from scratch.'' he said.

"When people get busy they tend to fall back on what they knew before (rather than what we would teach).

"I would like to bring in some people 18 months before opening and take them off Bermuda and give them jobs in the US and the Caribbean and then bring them back. That's the easiest way to transfer culture.'' A golden opportunity He said Tucker's Point Club, which will have a 108 room hotel, luxury spa, residential developments, and tennis and golf club, will be uniquely Bermudian.

Rosewood, which manages 14 luxury properties throughout the world and has 23 others under construction, will provide management services such as food, beverages and maid services to the hotel, the beach and golf club, and the residential complexes -- which will range from houses to condominiums.

Bermuda Properties owns the site with other investors, including local insurance group Argus which recently ploughed money into the project.

Journalists from publications such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, New York Post, Travel and Leisure, Hotel Business, Golf Magazine, Town and Country, Fodor's Guides, Associated Press, and Bloomberg News, attended yesterday's lunch.

Mr. Brown told them Rosewood spends 90 percent of its development time travelling to see if sites are right, and he has flown 350,000 miles this year alone checking destinations.

"We market to very global but very small niches that are very exclusive, looking for something special,'' he said.

"When I got a call from a gentleman I respect tremendously asking me to talk to (Tourism Minister) David Allen and (Bermuda Properties President) Ed Trippe about Tucker's Point, I said `obviously'.

"We looked hard, and got so excited so quickly, it was hard to believe. It was a dream.

"Vacations to some people are like a dream, and when you can fulfil them like Tucker's Point, it makes the job very easy.

"There is a far greater demand in Bermuda in the high end market than 108 rooms and it creates some value and potential for such a market in Bermuda that there will be more high end development in Bermuda.'' He said the smallest room in the development will be 630 square feet, with an 11,000 square feet spa and 15 treatment rooms. He said no hotel the size of Tucker's point had a spa so big.

Mr. Trippe said the old cliche about "location, location, location'' was still true, and Bermuda was the location.

Tucker's Point will be a full-service location for exclusive clients, and property sites for residential properties will start from $3 million a site.

Tourism Minister David Allen, who attended with Works and Engineering Minister Alex Scott, said Tucker's Point is the single most important development in Government's plans to revitalise tourism through the Hotel Concessions Act.

The Act, introduced last year, gives tax breaks for new hotel developments or substantial refurbishment of existing properties.

"It will be two years to complete, but the government of Bermuda believes this is going to be the key to the reinvention of tourism in Bermuda,'' he said.

Afterwards, Bruce Serlen, hotels editor of the bi-weekly 60,000 publication Business Travel News, said the research had been done properly and there was a market for properties such as Tucker's Point.

"It is targeted at the high end consumer and that consumer is looking for a very deluxe experience, and they seem to have researched the target audience well,'' he said.

"A lot of people think that the consumer is recession-resistant, if not recession-proof, and Rosewood is a world class operator.

"They have a proven track record with high end consumers. Bermuda is a well-known destination, but any destination needs to be revitalised, and projects like this will revitalise a already established destination.''