Employers, employees and Government have to stop blaming each other for the problems facing tourism and start cooperating if the industry is to be rebuilt, a consulting group said this week.

Boston-based consultants the Monitor Company's report also said Bermuda had to offer a "more complex destination experience'' to its visitors in order to compete.

Monitor was selected to help create a long term plan to rebuild tourism and has met with organisations and individuals in the public and private sectors and reviewed numerous tourism reports over the past four months.

This week it released a report after completing the first phase of its study containing 12 courses of action the Island must take to revitalise tourism.

Among the recommendations are the need for different groups in the tourism industry to work more constructively.

"Negative attributions and unproductive dialogues are impeding Bermudians' abilities to have the complex discussions necessary to build cooperative solutions,'' the report said.

"Hotel workers and managers acknowledge the same data about falling occupancy, lower quality service for visitors and the increasing unstable employment of both managers and staff.

"However, each group tends to blame the other for the problems, when...the problems are the shared responsibility of both groups.

"Without the ability to discuss the complex ways in which their actions affect each other, managers and workers fall back on advocating simple, independent solutions to the same problems and rarely join forces to achieve the results they both desire.'' Monitor said explicit discussions should be held between public and private sector managers and employers to ensure that tourism's operational and regulatory steering mechanisms supported the new strategy.

"To create an environment which allows considerable flexibility and innovation, we recommend that these discussions begin assuming a "zero base'' of responsbility for all parties''.

Monitor Company project director Joseph Babiec told The Royal Gazette this week that the recommended courses of action had been prioritised.

Mr. Babiec said the Island had four immediate, intermediate and long term priorities it had to address.

The next stage is to discuss the issues with all the involved organisations and individuals and reach a consensus on which specific actions to take. He said these would be made public as soon as they were finalised.

Immediate concerns involved adapting the Island's tourism related services to meet the needs of the specific types of vistors Bermuda wanted.

Monitor lays out tourism proposals These must be selected from the different types of consumer and their needs that the Monitor Company identified through its research, including romantic and family vacationers, quick break travellers and water sport enthusiasts.

Details of the research were not made public.

Once Bermuda decided on the experiences it wished to offer, its firms and institutions had to agree on what roles they would play in satisfying visitor needs.

They needed to take responsibility for defining and implementing the strategy while Government provided an environment for them to compete in.

A third urgent priority was a comprehensive programme to develop human capital.

Bermuda's tourism industry would not be competitive unless the skills of workers and managers were improved and productivity was aligned with compensation.

Monitor recommended that talented employees should be sent overseas for training.

Monitor also said different profit sharing models should be examined as a means to funding staff development.

And the fourth immediate concern was for Bermuda's firms and institutions to undertake programmes to improve their service and facilities -- according to visitor priorities.

"Bermuda today has the right strategy for a time which no longer exists,'' the report said.

This would help close the gap between what consumers wanted and what the Island could deliver, said Mr. Babiec.

Once these four issues were being addressed, attention could be directed to the four intermediate priorities which included: Redefining Bermuda's image to reflect its new visitor experiences and industry values and expanding its "product portfolio'' to include the additional types of visitors it was seeking; Aligning Bermuda's off-Island distribution system with this new portfolio of experiences so the best travel firms -- which would likely require future training -- were marketing the Island; Strengthening and integrating on-Island information so people in need of data for marketing, distribution and product development decisions could access it quickly and easily; and Integrating cruise ship strategy with the on-Island portfolio of visitor experiences and its distribution strategy to boost each other's competitiveness.

And then there were the long term priorities, he continued.

As Bermuda re-entered the ranks of the world's elite vacation destinations it had to improve its ability to distinguish itself from them and to anticipate their innovations.

The Island also had to seek to create a new generation of tourism experiences that blended an increasing variety of services. Bermuda's international business services, education services or community events could provide the base for these, he suggested.