June 24, 2014

Dear Sir,

During my short stay on your beautiful islands I was interested to read that the William Hanbury, CEO of Bermuda Tourism Authority, has plans to increase the number of visitors by enticing more cruise ships to dock both at Hamilton and St George’s (Royal Gazette June 23).

Having previously worked in marketing for the Singapore Tourist Office, a small island itself dependent on tourism, I am aware to an extent of what tourists require if they are to make any country their favoured destination and the one thing that does not help Bermuda in this respect is that most of places a tourist requires are shut at (for a tourist) the most inconvenient of times.

For example: Whilst buying myself a natty pair of Bermuda shorts in a shop on Front Street one late afternoon I was surprised to see the staff closing the doors and putting up a ‘closed’ sign bang on the stroke of 5pm even though several tourists (those cruise passengers perhaps?) were wandering up and down the street obviously browsing and window shopping. And that shop is not an oddity.

Practically all the shops and stores seem to be closed outside office hours, and when I went to St George’s on the one day I was free, a Sunday, the Heritage Museum and the National Gallery were closed. Even a trip to the beautiful Horseshoe Bay was slightly less than enjoyable because the block with the showers and changing facilities closed at 6pm.

Perhaps there are issues with labour laws which I am unaware of that are holding things up, but if Bermuda wants to attract tourists and have people recommend it to their friends then Bermuda needs to be more open — literally. Once you are giving the tourists a good service you’ll have the cruise ships anchoring offshore as they wait for a berth. Such will be the demand.

I did intend to cc Mr Hanbury on this e-mail but I cannot find an e-mail address for him, but I’m sure he is an RG reader.

ALISTAIR KELMAN