without changing its character. We should spend a small percentage of the promotion money encouraging Bermudians to appreciate the importance of tourism to all of us. If we did that perhaps we would be more considerate of visitors and not inflict our problems on them. We might also get away from the "me, me'' attitude which led the PLP to suggest that Bermudians should come first at the Airport, ahead of those people who supplied the money for the Bermudian's trip in the first place.

We should start by emphasising rather than diminishing the British image. That is simply a business decision. Most North Americans are attracted by that image and most of our visitors are North American.

Rather than using valuable space for large entertainment projects, we need to develop varied smaller facilities on existing hotel properties. People are talking about another golf course using huge amounts of space which will be heavily patronised by locals to the exclusion of visitors. The money would be better spent increasing the variety of facilities. Lawn bowls are now popular, and not just with older people. Cyprus was recently crowded with people participating in and watching a snooker tournament. Islands to the south of us do huge business with divers but we have few people who come here specifically to dive because we do not make enough of our waters which we turn over to treasure hunters.

Williamsburg, Virginia exists for cultural tourism and we have more original history here than Williamsburg does. Yet the "powers that be'' dismiss cultural tourism which would seem to be a winter natural. Yet our history interests Americans because it links naturally with that of the United States.

We have the kernel of a good arts festival but we run it over too long a period for visitors to come here and enjoy a number of events. The festival is now a welcome winter diversion for locals, whereas most places use a festival as a visitor attraction.

We constantly talk about how expensive Bermuda is until people believe us. The truth is that some resorts, like Barbados, are more expensive and that Barbados does well on English and European business. Bermuda is not as expensive as many other places. What we need is a greater variety in what we offer.

As an example, we have too many restaurants keeping prices up in order to survive, and most of them are in a similar price range with menus that are much the same. We need variety in both menu and price.

Bermuda continues to go along with a tourism concept that was highly successful in the 1950s and largely involved dignified hotels and trips to the beach with afternoon tea as a diversion. But things are changing. Sea and sand do not hold the attraction they once did. We have to learn to keep the unique Bermuda ambiance we have but to add facilities which do not damage what we have. We need to give people something more. We also need to remember just what we owe to visitors.