Fears continue to mount that retailers could be forced out of business — and staff cuts are deemed a certainty — after more than half the Country said they cut back their spending during the past festive season.

Retail boss Kristi Grayston said down-on-their-luck shopkeepers would not be surprised by poll results showing 54 percent of people splashed out less at Christmas 2009 than the previous year.

And she reiterated that as stores carry on losing money, many face shutting unless matters take a serious change for the better this year.

"People are starting to think about whether or not they remain open," Ms Grayston told The Royal Gazette yesterday. "Everybody expects it to be a difficult year. We hope for a recovery by the fourth quarter. If there isn't, everybody will have to think long and hard about continuing."

Ms Grayston said stores had trimmed costs such as salaries, payroll tax and rent as much as they could but overheads were still higher than profits.

She said no single kind of shop was doing worse than any other, but pointed to particular problems if clothes shops get closed down.

"Apparel is just having a nightmare of a time," she said. "That's something we don't want to be as an Island — without clothing stores.

It's frightening. "I don't want to be a scaremonger, but we are a closed category for immigration; retail is a 99 percent Bermudian industry.

"These are your neighbours, your family and friends.

Certainly businesses are going to have to cut back on staff going through this winter if they haven't already. Hopefully tourism comes back. There's been a recovery in the US, so maybe some visitors from there might by more likely to spend money here. Maybe that will give retailers the boost they need."

Asked about their spending at Christmas 2009, 54 percent of people told Research.bm they spent less than the previous year, with ten percent saying they spent more, and the rest about the same.

Official retail figures for December are not yet available, but sales fell by $5 million in November last year, the ninth straight month of decline.

Over the past year, Ms Grayston has repeatedly urged shoppers to buy in Bermuda and reminded them of the hidden extra costs of purchasing from overseas, but concedes it's been very hard to educate the Country.

Yesterday, she said: "I believe in Bermuda and Bermudians, we have got to start looking at ourselves and taking care of ourselves. "If we spend a dollar overseas, that dollar is not coming back. When you spend a dollar in Bermuda, it goes to Bermuda.

"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out that if you earn money in one community and send it somewhere else, things are going to get difficult."

Research.bm's telephone poll of 432 residents took place from January 6 to January 9 and has a 4.9 percent margin of error.