in favour of an international marketing firm with a good track record in tourism. We are not sure that we agree with the details but we certainly think the Ministry of Tourism should be disbanded.

If Bermuda's tourism has been slipping for the past 15 years as everyone now claims, then the Ministry has been a serious failure. That leads us to believe it is not going to be able to cure the problem; if the Ministry knew how, it would have done so by now. No well run board of directors would have tolerated this kind of decline.

Since the Ministry of Tourism is in the realm of the Civil Service, staff changes are difficult if not impossible. That is so despite the fact that a number of people at Tourism were not trained in tourism. Apples are seldom hired as oranges, so why do we assume that anyone who is competent will be good at tourism? Tourism is a complex and specialised field.

That being so, the only solution seems to be to disband the Ministry as part of the Civil Service and start fresh with people who are tourism professionals. If we have to import them, then so be it. The industry which feeds us is in trouble.

A few years ago it could be said that the recession was causing the problem.

That is not true today. Other resorts are doing well in terms of visitors and in terms of new hotels and other facilities. Bermuda is dead in the water.

Maybe as a Country we do not care. Perhaps we would like to see tourism disappear or decline to an insignificant level. If that is so, it is a decision which should be made consciously and with careful planning and not by default.

Things are happening in the private sector. Retailers are trying hard for better prices and a more varied selection of goods. Some hotels seem to be making real efforts to improve their facilities and their service. The VIP programme is up and going. St. George's is working to become a "must visit'' destination.

Hamilton needs to learn from St. George's and develop its spectacular waterfront for visitor enjoyment -- not as a car park. Hamilton also has to give up the crazy objections to outdoor cafes. We have to work at good service with a good attitude and we may have to learn to do that without an automatic gratuity. None of that will be of much use unless we deal with transportation problems which now restrict visitors to their accommodations.

But on the promotion front -- on the Ministry front -- it seems to be business as usual and very little seems to be happening. There was a burst of intense activity when David Dodwell first became Minister of Tourism and much excitement over the ill-conceived "sex and sin'' advertising campaign and then ...not much. This is a crisis.

We think the solution is a quango which is allowed to hire according to competence and allowed to fire for failure. The quango would also be empowered to hire at market salaries in order to get the best for Bermuda.