with the Society of American Travel Writers conference, the Island has been warned it must pull out all the stops to make the event a success.

Around 500 travel journalists and editors arrive for the conference in the Fairmont Southampton Princess in September and previous hosts say the multi-million dollar publicity generated can last for years.

The Royal Gazette spoke to organisers of previous SATW conferences in Israel, Wales, and Banff, Canada, to gauge the impact of the event.

"The SATW conference is an incredible opportunity to speak to not only writers, but people in the PR business of tourism, and the message is you can't do too much to make it a success,'' said Geoffrey Weill, who chaired the 1998 conference in Israel.

In a special report on Page 5 of today's Royal Gazette , reporter Stephen Breen examines how previous SATW conferences have affected other resorts.