Last week, Minister of Tourism Dr. Ewart Brown delivered a speech in which he outlined the Government's plan for reviving Bermuda's tourist industry.

On the whole, it was a good speech that suggested the Minister has thought seriously about the issue. It articulated several goals and detailed a number of initiatives that will be undertaken to achieve them. It would be nice to hear something similar from Randy Horton on crime or Ashfield DeVent on housing.

But when the next election rolls around and Bermudians are evaluating the Government's performance on tourism while deciding how to vote, how will they know if it achieved those goals? And will they even remember that the Government made them?

After I started my first job, one of the first things I learned was how to formulate a set of objectives. I was told that the goals I set should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-limited ('Achievable' means the goal is theoretically possible for somebody under ideal circumstances, 'Realistic' means it's possible for you under current circumstances).

A SMART objective fosters accountability by ensuring the conditions for success are clearly specified. At the same time, it guards against the de-motivation and disappointment that can result from failing to meet an over-ambitious target. However, the fact that SMART objectives are hard to wiggle out of makes them unpopular with politicians. They usually prefer to keep their goals as vague as possible lest it count against them at the next election.

So how do Dr. Brown's recent pledges stand up to the SMART criteria? His first objective is to "increase air arrivals to 400,000 over the next three years". Well, that's certainly specific, measurable, achievable and time-limited. Is it realistic? The last time Bermuda had that many air arrivals was 1994; in 2004 they'd declined to around 270,000. Hitting Dr. Brown's target will require an increase in air arrivals of 16 percent per year for the next three years. I fear the Minister may be setting himself up to fail.

The second objective is to "achieve our daily carrying capacity through effective management of cruise arrivals". This isn't quite as SMART. The World Tourism Organisation defines carrying capacity as "the maximum number of people that may visit a tourist destination at the same time, without causing destruction of the physical, economic, socio-cultural environment and an unacceptable decrease in the quality of visitors' satisfaction". Hmm, I'd say Bermuda's carrying capacity was about 1,563, wouldn't you? This goal may be relatively specific, but it's completely unmeasurable and not time-limited.

Dr. Brown's third and fourth objectives ? "increase key visitor experience 'complete satisfaction' indicators by ten percent" and "increase per person visitor spending by seven percent" ? are better. Both are reasonably specific and measurable. They may be achievable and realistic too, although without the addition of a timescale it's hard to judge.

The last goal ? "increase Tourism Department efficiency, effectiveness and productivity" ? is so woolly that at first I mistook it for a sheep. Small productivity improvements may be achievable and realistic, but what form would they take, how would they be measured and when should we expect to see them? The intent is laudable but if Dr. Brown is serious about improving the department he needs to set some concrete targets by which any improvement can be measured.

Fortunately, solving Bermuda's tourism woes boils down to bringing more people here and persuading them to spend more. Dr. Brown's objectives in these areas are pretty good. But politicians are notorious for making promises that are never heard of again.

This can be a good thing if the promise was a poor one anyway. It wasn't very long ago that Dr. Brown was suggesting we should measure Bermuda's success as a tourist destination by looking at the percentage of available beds occupied, rather than raw arrival numbers. That metric was flawed as it could show an increase even if arrivals and visitor spending were falling. Fortunately, Dr. Brown made no further mention of it last week and his new objectives suggest an acceptance that arrival numbers are important after all.

Sometimes, however, governments the world over have a habit of quietly dropping a promise if they realise they can no longer keep it. Memories are short and unless the media or Opposition pick up on it, the Government's failure will go largely unnoticed. Eternal vigilance, as they say, is the price of liberty; it's probably the only solution here too.

Bermuda's next election is less than three years away. Although some of them could be more specific, Dr. Brown's objectives will provide a decent measure of the Government's success in turning tourism around when polling day comes.