February 9, 2014

Dear Sir

On Saturday morning I heard a young man being interviewed by Charles Webbe. The topic was both Bermudian musicians and musical entertainment for our visitors. I didn’t get his name but he was representing a new union, the Bermuda Entertainers Union (I think). I was brought up in the hotel and restaurant world during the golden age of tourism in Bermuda, the 1950s through the 1970s. In those days, tourism was 95 percent of our economy and local entertainment was available at many venues and every night of the week. The interview raised the issue of quality — and that is very important — but it also touched on the product.

Consumers buy what they want, not what you want. I may be past my prime and slightly out of touch with the tourists of today but it seems to me that we ought to make sure that we are providing the music and the entertainment that they — our tourists — want.

At least one of the reasons that tourists come here is because we are different — a beautiful and relatively sophisticated island with a traditional British culture and something different than what they’d find either in the US or even offshore. I’m guessing that they don’t want what they can get at home. It would be useful to ask them what they want in terms of music and even entertainment generally and concentrate on providing it.

We may have all sorts of problems here but for a little island we have a lot of talent. If we give our guests what they want, at a reasonably high quality, I have no doubt there will be local musicians in every hotel, every night.

STROLLER FAN