visitors. When Bermuda had a large number of college students there were indications that they did disturb regular visitors and were often booked into Bermuda at rates that were not very productive. The argument in favour of having college students was that they were introduced to Bermuda and often returned, especially as honeymooners. That may no longer be true because this is more of a "been there, done that'' world.

College Weeks started with teams coming to Bermuda to compete in decent weather. Other students followed. Now it seems that we are back to having students who basically come here to take part in sports, be it lacrosse, field hockey or tennis. If we want to continue with students, and any visitor has been a welcome sight this year, that may well be the way to go. The Director of Tourism, Mr. Gary Phillips has said that a strategy of Tourism for College Weeks is to target "special interest groups'' and that the challenge is to find the right formula for these visitors.

Mr. Randy Horton, who is involved in activities at Tourism, has said that this year we are having tennis, golf and rugby teams and tourism has tailor made activities for these teams. That is the correct approach. If Bermuda gives people a reason to come, we think they will come here. With increased competition from other resorts, Bermuda can no longer expect that people of any stripe will just arrive. College Weeks began with students following teams and we see no reason why that could not happen again.

There is another advantage to teams. They tend to be groups which are more organised and supervised and since they have a group purpose and respect for the image of the group, we think they tend to be better behaved.

Fashions have changed and the individual college student looking for a spring break now finds Bermuda somewhat dull and boring. They are looking for a wilder time than Bermuda can provide or is willing to provide. We must also look at resorts like Fort Lauderdale in Florida which did provide the wild time and ran into serious problems and is now trying to get rid of the students and live down its spring break reputation.

Once Bermuda was the name of the game for College Weeks because they started in Bermuda but, like other aspects of tourism, that changed when other resorts provided better times and better weather for less cash. Many of the students today are looking for warmer weather than Bermuda usually provides in the spring and have moved further south. As Mr. Horton has pointed out, there is strong competition from southern destinations and students can get there for much less than it costs to fly to Bermuda.

Students and College Weeks were seen as the beginning of Bermuda's tourist season and hotels which were not especially busy used them to boost occupancy.

It may well be that if we concentrate on cultural tourism, which is essentially an all-weather tourism, we can replace College Weeks with regular visitors.

We think it is highly probable that fashions have changed so much among students that no amount of effort will effectively revive an old institution.

Some fashions simply go out of favour forever.