There are more than 300 persons participating in the Monitor Company's initiatives that are intended to improve the Island's tourist industry.

And while they have had to fulfil some requests in areas that were unexpected, Joseph Babiec, Monitor company project director, said that good progress is being made among the various working teams.

In a progress report to its investors, Mr. Babiec highlighted the working group's success in their various areas.

Monitor, he pointed out, was requested to undertake an additional initiative that grew out of the realisation that Bermuda could not rebuild its tourism industry without the "cooperative efforts of the leadership of the employers and the employees and the constituencies they represent.'' While this is a laudable goal, Mr. Babiec said that there is a long history of mutual defensiveness and mistrust between employer and employee organisations.

Consequently, the benefits of cooperation are undermined.

As a result, Mr. Babiec said that Monitor would begin a process of facilitation that would start in Bermuda in March.

This will be followed soon after with three days of intensive workshops at Monitor's global headquarters.

Leading experts on interpersonal and organisational defensiveness will work with the Bermudian contingent.

Mr. Babiec also reported that Monitor had received positive feedback from its three scheduled forums that involved 140 representatives from more than 100 companies.

The focus of the forums was the 12 types of potential visitors that were previously identified by Monitor. Once these visitors had been identified the next portion of the forum was methods of attracting the visitors to their businesses and working with other businesses to deliver to the visitor the kinds of experiences they required.

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