in order to win new business, according to a leading operator.

Pink Beach Club general manager Mr. Toppy Cowen said he believes individual businesses should send more sales representatives to North America, Bermuda's main market, and hotels should seriously consider linking with the Internet, a global information system.

His comments came in the wake of new statistics which showed Bermuda continues to see a decline in air arrivals. For the year so far, air arrivals have dropped by more than six percent. Cruise ship arrivals have also fallen sharply.

A survey also showed that of the most popular holiday destinations from America, Bermuda was ranked 22nd, below London, France, Mexico, Germany and Italy. Hong Kong and Australia also beat Bermuda.

Mr. Cowen recently sent five sales representatives to major cities in the US to promote his Pink Beach cottage colony and said he and other hotels are "seriously considering'' linking up to the Internet.

With a prediction that 10,000 travel agencies in America may go out of business in the next two years, he said the Internet could prove to be extremely important.

"The Internet that affords potential visitors to obtain information about destinations may become an important ingredient for the future,'' he added.

Mr. Cowen does not place the blame for the fall in air and cruise ship arrivals on the Bermuda Department of Tourism, but says it could help the situation in two ways.

He believes the Department could encourage hotels to join the Internet and also alter adverts in Islands, an international magazine advertising island holidays.

According to Mr. Cowen, an advert in the May/June issue for Curacao and Bermuda were almost identical, except for the small captions around pictures of the Island. "This is an ongoing problem that seriously needs to be addressed'' he said.

Recently, added Mr. Cowen, the US House Speaker Mr. Newt Ginrich said the price of travelling would go down with the opportunity for people to travel, increasing. The result, said Mr. Ginrich, would be that travel and tourism would take up a much bigger share of the world economy.

Mr.

Ginrich was reported as saying that the most creative country with the most dynamic thinking would see an increase in jobs created with associated increases in standards of living and wealth. Those countries, he said, that fail to "get their act together are going to cripple themselves''.

Yesterday, Director of Tourism Mr. Gary Phillips said he broadly agreed with Mr. Cowen's comments. He said he had seen the advert in the Islands Magazine and felt they were distinct from each other.

"They are very distinctive, but it is an on-going challenge that someone invariably comes along and copies certain elements of our campaign,'' he added.

Mr. Phillips also stressed that the Tourism Department was already linked to the Internet and had encouraged hotels to take out their own pages. He agreed, however, that it would be a good idea if hotels joined the system independently.

"There are 30,000 travel agencies in North America and our challenge has always been to find those that will produce business for Bermuda and we have a mechanism in place to do that. However, I would agree with Mr. Cowen on the point of businesses being more proactive themselves.''