Government only has itself to blame if developers have got the mix between hotel rooms and condominiums wrong, shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell has claimed.

Tourism Minister Renee Webb said Government was unhappy at the pace hotels were being built which had been given tax breaks under the Hotel Concessions Act.

Developers had already built condominiums and houses at the Tucker's Point Club and at Palmetto Palms in Flatt's, but the hotels have not been completed.

Ms Webb said Government did not want to get duped by developers who would build housing but not deliver the promised hotel beds. She confirmed yesterday that Government wants to tighten up these deals, and that in future, developers who want to build housing on hotel sites to finance their projects may be forced to build the hotel first or face penalties.

But she stressed every new proposal would be looked at on a case by case basis.

She said she was still in discussions with Palmetto Gardens' owner Jeff Amaral to find out when he would build his hotel, and that the developer was committed to constructing a hotel.

"We are looking at ways of tightening it up so that the perception that people are taking advantage is not there, and that there are penalties in place," said Ms Webb yesterday.

But Mr. Dodwell said: "Tourism in Bermuda does not lend itself to an arrogant, top-down management style. It is a partnership in which people move forward best and most quickly by consensus.

"Minister Webb was showing her inexperience in her remarks this morning about the slow pace of hotel building.

"Members of the public might also find it a bit curious that the Smith Government, which has been administering this law for the last five years, should suddenly discover now, just before an election, that it isn't working.

"If the mix of condominiums and hotel rooms isn't right, surely they have no one to blame but themselves.

"Why haven't more hotel rooms been built? What has the money been spent on? Only Tourism Minister Renee Webb has the answers to those questions."