The Department of Tourism is restructuring to increase efficiency, effectiveness and productivity.

This includes moving sales staff to home-base offices and shifting the responsibility for consumer marketing activities from Bermuda to New York.

These changes, according to the Tourism and Transport Minister Ewart Brown, come at a critical time in the implementation of the 2005 Tourism Plan.

Dr. Brown said sales staff transitioned to home-based offices had already occurred in Canada and Boston ? and is in the final planning stages of Atlanta.

He said the shifting of consumer marketing activities to New York will enable the Ministry to better capitalise on and exploit the synergies between marketing and sales.

?The consolidation of the marketing and sales groups will provide for better alignment of the elements of the marketing mix and the challenge was to get the balance right.?

?We, like many other organisations, have finite resources, human and financial, and therefore they need to be allocated effectively if we are to maximise the very best return and continue to increase our visitor arrivals,? he said.

Dr. Brown added that naturally this shift in functions would impact the entire organisation structure and this matter was currently under review.

He said the department was also moving to streamline the UK sales and marketing efforts and to this end, its relationship with their UK representation company, Hills Balfour, has been terminated.

In October, the department will confirm Thomas MacDonald as the lead sales manager in the UK with responsibility for all sales efforts.

Glenn Bean has been appointed director of sales following the recent resignation of Richard Eve. Dr. Brown said Mr. Bean brings more than 17 years of sales experience to the post and has worked in both leisure, group and incentive sales and has been assigned to several different markets in the US.

Since 2002, Mr. Bean was the senior manager, travel distribution services for Government in Washington, DC.

Dr. Brown said the Department was also looking for a new location for the New York office, currently located in Manhattan.

?We think midtown Manhattan is a waste of money,? he said.

Dr. Brown also announced that Andre Curtis will be the new chairman of the Tourism Board.

Mr. Curtis will be looking at the structure of the board and redefine its role as well as its standard operating procedures.

Other changes to the Department of Tourism include the hiring of a new direct marketing agency, Publicis Dialog, which will be responsible for the department?s acquisition and retention programmes, bermudatourism.com, 1-800-bermuda and database management.