I wish to commend Philip Barnett for having the courage to present the reality of the challenges facing business operators in Bermuda. Many of us have had conversations with senior officers of Immigration and have expressed the challenges we face but have failed to make our case public. As a long time Bermudian hotelier, I share some of the blame for not making those issues public.First of all, let me deal with some of the myths:1. Employers don’t want to employ Bermudians Rubbish, of course we do, apart from our own pride in our country and people, employing Bermudians is good business sense. Going through the lengthy processes of recruiting staff from abroad, compiling immigration documentation, annually going through the process of sounding out foreign staff as to whether they wish to stay, again going through the immigration process, being responsible for foreign staff repatriation, housing, etc, are expensive and time consuming considerations. Add the challenge of term limits to this and it is clearly much smarter and easier to employ Bermudians.2. Foreign staff are paid less than Bermudians again, rubbish. In the hotel industry, we operate under a collective agreement with the Bermuda Industrial Union and staff are paid uniformly according to position, tenure and experience. The BIU represents foreign and local staff alike and they would be the first to grieve should we set up a double standard of remuneration. Apart from that, it just wouldn’t be good business.The realities of Bermuda tourismLet’s add some of the realities the hospitality business is operating under in Bermuda:1. Bermuda is one of, if not the, most expensive jurisdiction to operate in. The costs of everything are higher, sometimes many multiples higher than those of our competition. Virtually everything we use in our operations is imported. We have to pay freight and related costs just to put food on the table, make a bed, operate a laundry, etc. Electricity and gas are more expensive by several multiples than in any of our competitors. Labour costs are several times more expensive. Construction/refurbishing costs are several times more expensive. All of the contracting services we use, plumbers, masons, electricians, IT professionals, transport, freight forwarders, suppliers of essential goods and materials are more expensive. And the cost of land on which we operate our businesses is far higher, so right from the get go, the moment we open our doors, we have a far higher capital cost to try and provide returns on.2. Given the higher costs, we have to charge higher rates for our services. If we don’t, we can’t survive. And the only way we can get away with charging higher rates is by ensuring that the value we deliver exceeds the expectations of the clients paying those higher rates.3. Higher rates mean higher levels of service, of physical infrastructure of our operations, our restaurants, rooms, facilities, grounds and public spaces. We have to set standards for all of these aspects of our product that are commensurate with what competitive hotels, charging similar rates but with far lower costs, are charging.4. Our hotel is a AAA 4 Diamond hotel which means it is rated one of the top resort operations in the world. That too demands that we deliver those standards, every time, with every guest interaction. There is no room for a bad day, forgetfulness, shoddy workmanship, surly attitudes or lack of follow through. We need to deliver every service, every facility, every aspect of our product with excellence, every time.5. In short we have to be the best, compete with the best in the world and what we can charge is compared on the Internet easily and quickly by any incoming prospective guest.So we have to charge at the highest rates in the world, just to cover the costs.6. We have seen a declining season. Not long ago, we could forecast with some confidence occupancies in the 80s plus from Mid April to Mid October and we had reasonably healthy shoulder months. Now we are lucky, in the resort business in Bermuda, to “enjoy” profitable occupancies from the end of May until the end of August.Running a hospitality business is far more complex than it was even a decade ago. Where we market, how we market, the huge increase in ways by which we have to sell our hotels, the demands of the younger client, the reduction of loyalty of the new client we can’t look forward to huge return factors, even if we have delighted our guest. The increase in competitive destinations and the hunger to explore the world in today’s generation of travellers means that it is more challenging to persuade them to return. The advent of technology as both an essential ingredient of our business and as amenities demanded by our clients, demands new expertise. The constant demand for improved efficiencies, the need to watch the changing needs and aspirations of our client markets means we have to be flexible and able to change ourselves, constantly. I have often said that to do nothing, to stand still and not evolve, is a formula for business death and yet, in Bermuda, making those changes, trying to stay ahead of the competition is inordinately expensive.Everyone is not an expertThere is a feeling amongst many that anyone can be a hotelier. Indeed, it seems that everyone is an expert of the hospitality business. Many believe that anyone can be a front desk agent, a waiter and, yes, a worker responsible for the cleanliness of our kitchens, or keeping our rooms up to standards. There is a view that as the economy forces Bermudians out of work, all of them should be simply absorbed into our business.I agree that we have an innate and essential responsibility for training. And yes, we can train the technical skills necessary for any position. But you cannot offer to those demanding guests, paying high rates, a workforce that is under training. You always have to have a preponderance of trained and skilled employees on the front line. Beyond this, applicants to our industry must have a high work ethic, they must be prepared to work shifts, work on weekends and public holidays. They must want to be in the industry. They have to have good people skills, be positive, be prepared to work beyond job descriptions, always looking for ways to delight our guests. There is no room for “not my job”, constant sickness, failure to deliver to the set standards, every time. We have to leave our bad days and our “tudes” at the gates of our property, we are on stage and we must deliver excellent performance each and every time. Second best just won’t cut it with guests paying the highest rates. We must be first class, very day, every time.I am proud to lead a company that is devoted to finding, training and retaining Bermudians. Most of our management team, most of our entire team is Bermudian. And most of them could be employed anywhere in the world at the best hotels in the world. But we are constantly facing the situation where Bermudians apply, go through training, and then leave too much work, simply don’t turn up for work, call in sick, fail to deliver on the vital standards. So those employees leave, and are replaced with others, some of whom share exactly the same challenges. In reality, they simply shouldn’t be employed in the hospitality business. This does not mean they are bad people, it is just they don’t have the right characteristics for this industry. But around and around we go, with a revolving door of employment, meanwhile we are being judged every day by our clients, comparing us to all the other places in the world where they travel. They are not in the slightest bit interested that a maid called in sick, or was having a bad day, so their room was not cleaned properly, turn down wasn’t given, food took too long to get to the table, they weren’t greeted warmly and professionally by the front desk, etc, etc.It is just not those in the hospitality sector, it is everyone that either comes into contact with our guests, services them or provides part of the guest experience. Shop assistants, taxi drivers, immigration and custom officials, bus drivers, all of us. We are all part of the guest experience.Add to these challenges the constant headlines of crime and destructive behaviour and don’t fool yourselves, those headlines are now read all over the world by prospective guests. It has gotten so bad that we have discontinued providing the daily paper to our guests as a free service. We simply don’t want them reading about our constant problems.‘Brand Bermuda’ has lost its focusAdditionally, the brand Bermuda has lost its focus and many of the affluent clients who are our prospective clients don’t know about Bermuda, don’t know where we are and don’t understand the intrinsic values of Bermuda, resulting in reduced demand, which in turn is forcing some hotels into deep discounts, forcing rates that are not sustainable, eliminating the ability to earn enough to have funds to reinvest in their properties, just to stay competitive. All this adds up to a negative spiral and is an essential reason why today there are fewer than half the number of rooms available on the Island than there were not long ago.So is it hopeless? Absolutely not. But we have to ensure that:l The new national tourism plan is not allowed, like so many that have come before, to die on a shelf; andl The marketing company about to be selected, is fully supported and understands the fundamental challenges and works for solutions that help us define Bermuda, gets our awareness and thus demand up and sets clearly the values of a Bermuda vacation that allow us to charge the rates we have to, to survive; andl Those of us who anything to do with the product of Bermuda are working together to ensure we deliver and exceed the expectations of value that our marketing and our rates are creating.We need those in authority to understand the challenges we face, to try and eliminate the constant red tape, the need for high level executives to be devoting hours of their time, explaining and dealing with, again and again, our challenges. We need to ensure that the Bermuda experience begins and ends with arrival and departure at the airport and that everything in between offers constant five star quality and a sense of appreciation and welcome and we have to deliver to those highest standards, every time.We have the expertise and skills and they are not isolated to either private or public sectors, they reside across the board, we must work together, not in our separate silos.And we need to get over ourselves. We need to admit that other jurisdictions are doing a better job than we are and we are no longer the leader. Not every Bermudian is suited to being a hospitality worker, just like not everyone is suitable to be a doctor, a lawyer or an international business worker. We are a very small community and our reserves of talent our limited by definition. We are a first-world country needing to offer first-world services and our tiny population will never allow us to be fully self-sustaining. We need outside help from talent who have the skills, the experience and the work ethic to ensure, we reach the levels of excellence necessary to sustain value.We have the knowledge and the expertise to understand and deliver the solutions, the question is do we have the will and the courage to put those plans into place, to demote immediate political interests, on both sides of the aisle, in favour of long term national interests? The jury is out.Michael Winfield is chief executive officer of Cambridge Beaches