The Premier's newly announced policy on cruise ships, allowing them to open casinos and on board entertainment, while in port, is evidence of that Bermuda Tourism is in crisis.

These are hard times for tourism and it's going to get worse. Dr. Brown's triumph of getting greater airlift to the Island is now being unraveled by skyrocketing jet fuel prices.

Airlines are in desperate straits and are moth-balling planes, laying off staff and canceling flights, including those to Bermuda. There may be more to come.

Turbulent financial markets and the global credit crunch have made it nigh on impossible to get financing for proposed major Bermuda-based resorts.

Cruising has been the best value for the vacation dollar in recent years, but with rising bunker fuel prices, profit margins for cruise operators are bound to be squeezed and therefore the squeeze is being transferred to us, the destination.

Prior to the advent of Dr. Brown's tourism policies the thrust had always been toward attracting visitors who stayed in Bermuda hotels, so called regular visitors, because these visitors made a much greater contribution to the Bermuda economy than did cruise passengers. Regular visitors spend between six to ten times more than cruise visitors. Yet Dr. Brown's policies have resulted in an emphasis on cruise passengers over regular visitors. Last year, for the first time, total cruise visitors exceed regular visitors. Dr. Brown's argument has been that we should take what the marketplace gives us, and to a certain extent that point has validity.

However, now that we have become more dependent on cruising than ever before, we are told that concessions have to be made. We have spent millions building deep water docks at Dockyard for the panamax ships. We have allowed the cruise lines to tender their passengers from Dockyard to Hamilton using their own lifeboat fleet, while private sector, Bermudian-owned vessels, which are willing to provide this service, lie idle. The only local vessel providing such services is the Government tender Bermudian which is insufficient for ships with a passenger manifest of upward of 2,500.

Regular passenger vessels tied up in Hamilton are absent for the first time in almost 100 years, the war years excluded. And now we hear about even further concessions to cruise lines. What we're not hearing is perhaps more damning than what we have heard so far. We haven't heard that XYZ cruise line has signed a long term contract to bring ships into Hamilton harbour. If Dr. Brown's concessions were to clinch such a deal they might be more acceptable.

What we have heard is that concessions, some very unpalatable to Bermudians, have been made without public consultation on the HOPE that some cruise line somewhere MAY be attracted to provide a service to Bermuda.

Instead of making concessions to seal a deal which may be beneficial to Bermuda, Dr. Brown has surrendered these concessions for nothing more than a hope.

The so called benefits to which Dr. Brown refers need to be put into perspective.

Government's own figures estimate cruise passengers spend upward of $50 million per year in Bermuda. These announced expected "benefits" aggregate three quarters of one million dollars; note the Premier said that the benefits "could" reach this level, not will.

Another aspect of this is on-shore entertainment. I don't know how this package will "stimulate the development of on-island entertainment," when such entertainment will be provided by foreign, cruise ship-based entertainers. This is costing the cruise lines virtually nothing as these on board entertainers are already on contract. And what about our local entertainers? There is no mention of them. This is the Follies all over again, and we know how that undeveloped our local entertainment sector.

The beneficial effect that cruising has had on destinations to our south that are highly dependent on cruise ships is clear. That beneficial effect is very marginal at best.

Cruise ship operators are very tough negotiators and will squeeze every possible concession out of a destination to their own advantage. Now that Government has surrendered these concessions up front we can be sure the cruise lines will extract further concessions before any deal to bring ships into Hamilton is struck.

That is the deal that counts, is it not? This other stuff is merely fluff.

E.T. (Bob) Richards is the Shadow Finance Minister