It's hard not to notice the coincidence that Premier Dr. Ewart Brown would launch a vigorous defence of his travel habits just one day after it was revealed that a giant American corporation had been given the Government travel contract, thus depriving local agencies of work just when the global recession is cutting into travel spending.

Government travel is a constant bone of political contention, not because travel is unnecessary, but because there is so much of it.

It makes sense for the Premier and the Finance Minister to visit Washington, DC to make Bermuda's case with the White House and Congress.

It makes sense for the Premier to attend meetings with the Overseas Territories leaders in London and to meet with British Ministers.

And as Tourism Minister, it makes sense for Dr. Brown to promote the Island abroad and to meet airline and cruise line heads.

No one has ever questioned that, and the Premier's defensiveness on those questions is curious.

Where the Premier is open to criticism is over some of the other travel he has done, in places like China and Italy, when the immediate results are pretty slim and where a substantial entourage seems to be required. That's where the expense gets out of hand.

More broadly, Bermuda seems to send large delegations to all kinds of fact finding missions and conferences. This is the kind of expenditure, especially in a recession, that needs to be cut.

In that context, the news, reported in the Bermuda Sun last week, that American Express has been given the contract for arranging Government travel, is equally curious.

It is strange that local travel agencies that at least keep some money in the Bermuda economy have been displaced by Amex.

The response from Cabinet Secretary Mark Telemaque was that Government had been criticised so much for travel spending that Amex's promise to reduce costs by half was inarguable. He suggested that the local agencies were either unwilling or unable to provide the same kind of savings.

That's fine, but misses two points. One is that Government can reduce its own travel bills by reducing its volume of travel as well as the value.

The second concerns the lack of bidding for the contract. It would appear that Amex has done the classic "foreign expert" stunt of being brought to Bermuda to "consult" on how to reduce Government's travels expenses, only to "discover" that it is the organisation best suited to handle the account.

According to C Travel's Carl Paiva, insult was added to injury because the local travel agencies, as part of the "consultation" process, gave Amex all their business information, but were never given the opportunity to bid on the new contract.

Mr. Paiva maintained that the agencies could drop their prices, and they should at least have been given the chance to do so.

Why is it that Home Affairs Minister Sen. David Burch can say, in effect, that he wants a non-Bermudian laid off whenever a Bermudian is, but Government, in deciding to whom it will issue contracts, can give the contract to a giant American corporation without even giving local firms the chance to bid?

No doubt, when local agencies are forced to lay off staff because of the drop in the volume of their business, they will then be lectured to by Dr. Brown or some other Minister on how they have failed to adapt to changing times.

One day, when the burden of fees, taxes, Customs duties have finally finished off what's left of the domestic business sector, Government will notice that it is not getting the tax revenue it is used to and will get concerned. But by then, it will be too late.