Opposition spokesman for tourism Michael Dunkley believes the upcoming international Love Festival is a waste of taxpayers’ money. Last year the festival, which spans Valentine’s Day weekend, brought 98 visitors to the Island and the year before that it brought 72 visitors.

Two weeks ago the Government announced Oxford Communications had again received the $150,000 contract to run the festival.

“Clearly for the $150,000 paid to Oxford Communications you can double the number of visitors to the Island by just giving away 150 $1000 travel vouchers to Bermuda,” Senator Dunkley said. “This type of wasteful spending has become the track record for the Premier and Minister for Tourism and sadly there is little in the way of results to justify the extravagance.”

Previously Premier Ewart Brown said he hoped 300 people would attend this year’s event. The Department of Tourism failed to answer questions about the Love Festival over the last five days.

This newspaper asked the Department:

l Does the Department believe it is a good time to hold the festival when the Ministry of Finance has asked people to trim their budgets?

l Is the Department on target with selling 300 tickets to tourists for the event?

l How many tickets have been sold to the event?

Sen. Dunkley added: “It is also very concerning that the Finance Minister has allowed this type of spending to go unchecked for the past few years.

“One would have thought that after the poor results the first couple of years with this event, and the fact that Government revenue is down but spending is up on budget to date for this financial year, the Finance Minister would have put a stop to such wasteful spending.”