Dear Sir,

I thought the main reason for poor air numbers is that government has removed its seat guarantee.

Also, if you recall a disturbing article in RG a few years back, total tourist properties had shrunk from a 1970s high of 147 to 49.

So even if you could increase the numbers, where are you going to put these people?

It’s very easy to stick the blame on the Bermuda Tourism Authority (BTA) but it would be more accurate to stick it on ourselves. We have lost our identity.

Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s we identified ourselves as Britain’s Colonial Jewel in the Western Atlantic: flying the Union Jack, bobbies on bicycles, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, cricket and 4 o’clock teas, Watneys Red Barrel, “the shop window of European goods”, Triminghams and Smith’s, fringe-topped taxis and live entertainment wherever you turned and the smiles of welcome everywhere you looked.

The moment we changed our allegiances to the international companies’ markets, the doo-doo hit the fan! It’s no more complicated than that.

If we want tourism to work then we need to get our identity back.

BERMUDA BYE