"sitting back'' while Marriott's Castle Harbour Resort decided to close this winter.

He said a PLP government would have offered tax breaks to persuade the hotel to stay open, and made sure any closure for improvements was fully justified.

And it would have a plan for hotels to stagger their closures, reducing the impact on jobs and the Island's overseas image.

Mr Allen's comments came after Marriott's announcement on Friday that the hotel would close for two months during improvements to sewage and water systems. Manager Mr. Roger Borsink admitted the move was because of poor business forecasts.

Mr. Allen said: "We're disappointed that Mr. Woolridge (the Tourism Minister) and the UBP Government have not really taken the initiative because for several years now we have had these closures and the Government has been caught flat-footed.

"If the PLP were Government we would not just sit back and accept these closures happening willy nilly as they do now.

"We believe that hotels should only close as an absolutely last resort, and then they would have to justify the renovations or improvements made to those properties, and if they required such a closure.'' In some cases in the past, he said, there had been a little bit of eagerness to seize on any normal winter improvements and use them as a justification for closing down.

"If such closures were justified we would say they would have to be scheduled over a period of time. Hotels would have to stagger their closures over the winter so there would not be so much overlapping with other hotels.

"In the last few years there has been a pattern when two or three major hotels closed. If these were staggered it would lessen the impact in terms of the difficulty of marketing Bermuda when hotels are mothballed, and in terms of layoffs of hotel workers.

"Hopefully by means of gentle persuasion we would persuade them to be flexible.

"We would also discourage closures during the winter by increasing the amount of tax incentives that are given to hotels to enable them to be a little more economically viable in that period.'' Such incentives could take the form of rebates or tax holidays, said Mr.

Allen. "Ultimately, Government gets more revenue if there are more tourists in Bermuda.'' Another way of lessening the impact of closures would be to encourage hotels to keep part of their property open, rather than shutting their doors completely, he added.

Hoteliers filled slightly fewer rooms in July than they did in the same month last year, new figures show.

The occupancy rate was 73.3 percent, compared with 73.7 percent in July 1991.

Bookings for the coming months are also down on last year, latest Bermuda Hotel Association statistics reveal.

Projected occupancy figures are 61.2 percent for August, 43 percent for September and 41.3 percent for October.

These figures compare with projections of 67.9 percent, 44.3 percent and 41.4 percent at the same time last year.

Last year's actual occupancy rates were 82.3 percent, 64.5 percent and 66 percent.

"This year's projections appear at least to be holding to last year's,'' said BHA president Mr. David Dodwell. "However, last year's final occupancies for August, September and October were less than satisfactory.

"The challenge is to raise these occupancies to the level of 1990s or preferably of the last 1980s.'' Mr. David Allen.