Weeks is entirely to be welcomed. It cannot have escaped anyone's notice that College Weeks have virtually disappeared as a spring event and tourism revenue earner. The truth is that the style of Bermuda's College Weeks has become obsolete in other resorts. Bermuda became much too square for today's college students. It also became too expensive except for the very few and the weather was too uncertain for those looking for sun, sea and sand. Bermuda didn't swing in the wake of the 1960s and the boys moved on to the cheaper sun and sand and the more open style of Fort Lauderdale. The girls followed.

It is true that during busy College Weeks there were often problems at the hotels and guest houses with high spirited students on holiday and that, compared to regular visitors, they spent very little. However they were seen, probably correctly, as an investment in Bermuda's tourism future. College Weeks visitors came back and back, often on honeymoon, forming a core of very valuable repeat visitors. But then Bermuda began to take the students as something of a nuisance and an inconvenience. More and more premises refused to house students. Bermuda was busy with regular visitors.

Bermuda lost sight of how College Weeks began and of what originally brought the students to Bermuda. College teams came to Bermuda to practice and to compete with one another during a spring break from the frozen north and the young women followed the young men and College Weeks were born. The point is that College Weeks began with sporting teams. The problem of declining numbers of students arose because Bermuda did not provide for their changing needs and was no longer as much fun as other resorts. Bermuda also provided very little to compensate for the wet, windy weather we can often have in the early spring. Numbers declined from 14,000 to 2,000 last year.

We forgot that many of the team sports could be played in not so hot conditions and that if the boys came to compete, the girls would follow, no matter what.

Circumstances combined until College Weeks simply fell apart, plagued by a lack of interest locally and abroad and by desultory promotion that was more suitable to 1960 than to 1990. This newspaper was under the impression that the Ministry of Tourism was no longer interested in college weeks and had decided to let them die a quiet death rather than make the effort and the expenditure to compete. But the picture always changes when things get a bit tough in tourism.

Now Bermuda has recognised how the weeks began and is "shifting gears'' and turning back to the beginning and hopes to attract college students with sports packages. It's called Bermuda Spring Break Sports and will involve such things as special events for the students, free lunches and coaching.

It seems to us to be a smart move, if a late move, and may be the only hope Bermuda has of getting the students back.