THE Department of Tourism has awarded its $13.2-million advertising contract to a company owned by a benefactor of 2004 US presidential candidate Al Sharpton ? as predicted by the last September.

According to an informed source, GlobalHue's appointment has links with the Rev. Sharpton's visit to Bermuda in September 2004 when the civil rights veteran spoke at the Bermuda Industrial Union (BIU) banquet. But Tourism Minister Ewart Brown last night emphatically denied that there was any Sharpton connection and said that the agency was chosen on merit.

Four months after the Rev. Sharpton's visit, in January 2005, Dr. Brown announced that he had hired advertising executive Don Coleman, a major backer of the Rev. Sharpton's presidential campaign, as an advertising consultant.

Mr. Coleman is the owner of US agency GlobalHue, which Dr. Brown unveiled as the new advertising agency of record for the Department of Tourism last week.

Among the top donations to the Rev. Sharpton's campaign fund listed by the web site opensecrets.org are $8,000 from GlobalHue and a further $4,000 from Don Coleman Advertising. Mr. Coleman was the second biggest contributor to the Rev. Sharpton's campaign coffers, as well as being the campaign's finance director.

During his speech at the 2004 BIU dinner, the Rev. Sharpton spoke about the very public dispute between Government, sacked Berkeley contractor Pro-Active Management Systems Ltd. and the BIU.

An informed source told this newspaper that the Rev. Sharpton had agreed to attend the BIU dinner and "pour oil on the water" of the Berkeley row on condition that Government would award the tourism advertising contract to Mr. Coleman's company.

When asked about the source's claim, Dr. Brown said: "Why are black people subjected to such crazy questions?

"The contract has a total value of $13.2m ? is that too much for a black-owned agency? It really makes your question about a deal, wherein a speaking engagement which would cost at most $50,000 would be traded for a $13 million contract, seem strange."

"I don't recall your newspaper ever allowing a source to cause you to ask a previous Tourism Minister, not even my colleague David Allen, if the awarding of the ad contract had any basis other than an excellent rating by those who judged the agency's material. Maybe it had to do with a brilliant ad concept? Your source is not too bright."

The reported last September that speculation was rife in the hospitality industry that GlobalHue would be awarded the contract.

Last Thursday, towards the end of a lengthy update on tourism, Dr. Brown announced that "following a lengthy agency review process", GlobalHue had been selected as his Ministry's new advertising agency of record.

That agency review process was announced to the public last November when Dr. Brown said representatives of the Bermuda Hotel Association (BHA) and the Bermuda Alliance for Tourism (BAT) had been invited to participate. An unknown number of agencies were invited to send in submissions.

The result was the termination of the contract with Arnold Worldwide, which had been the Department's chief agency since being signed up by the late former Tourism Minister Mr. Allen in 2002.

GlobalHue has signed a three-year deal to boost the profile of Bermuda as a getaway destination for Americans living near the gateway cities of Miami, New York, Boston and Atlanta.

The company has said it intends to use ads in the style of the television comedy show. Along the lines of the "Feel the Love" campaign that has been running in Miami for the past year, the ads will show Americans chatting to friends and alluding to a sensual encounter with their partner on a trip to Bermuda, as their words are drowned out by a police siren or a honking car horn.

GlobalHue was founded as Don Coleman & Associates (DCA) in 1988. Its current name took effect in 2002 to reflect DCA's acquisition of Montemayor y Asociados, a San Antonio-based Hispanic advertising agency, and Innovasia, a Los Angeles-based Asian-American agency.