The squeeze to provide adequate housing for hotel workers in Bermuda could be addressed by bringing an empty cruise ship to the Island and allowing staff to stay in the cabins.

That?s one idea mooted by a Bermuda hotelier as the challenges of operating a hotel on the Island, and in the Caribbean in general, were discussed at the tenth Annual Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Investment Conference held at the Fairmont Southampton Hotel.

Finding room for hotel staff to lodge was a major issue within the industry, agreed all three members of the panel who spoke to delegates on the final day of the conference.

Referring to the Bermuda situation John Jefferis, who runs the Coco Reef resort, said that with some studio apartments renting at $2,000 a month in Bermuda, bold solutions needed to be considered. And he suggested the idea of an empty cruise ship being brought to the Island for the purpose of providing floating accommodation for hospitality workers.

?Dramatic things have to be looked at like bring in a cruise ship and parking it up,? he said, referring to the increasing number of hotels and office developments on the Island and the lack of accommodation for construction and hospitality workers. It is a frightening scenario.?

Also on the panel was Jay Litt, former Wyndham Worldwide executive vice president, who said in Orlando hotel operators were having to bring in housekeepers from 50 miles away because they could not find cheap accommodation any closer to the hotels where they work.

While Michael Mellor, a member of the ownership group for the 9 Beaches resort, agreed the problem of providing affordable accommodation for hotel staff was something that Bermuda needed to deal with.

As the panellists talked about other problems that can arise from running a hotel in the region, Mr. Mellor mentioned the experience of the 9 Beaches resort during its inaugural season last year.

One of the key selling points of the resort last year was its almost total reliance on Islanders to staff and operate the resort. But the idea proved to be less of a success than had been hoped.

Mr. Mellor said: ?Unfortunately the work ethic was lacking and we did not get the good public relations for it that we had hoped.

?The employees did not care and the Government did not care so this year we have gone for more people from off-Island.?

There was agreement from Mr. Litt, who said: ?The Bermuda Government has to address this. If tourism is going to work the staff have to give the service.?

Coco Reefs? Mr. Jefferis spoke of another difficult aspect for a relatively small, independent hotel developer and that is attracting the finance needed to get up and running.

Even having an agreement with a subsidiary of the World Bank had not helped as he set about opening his first Coco Reef hotel in Tobago during the 1990s, he revealed.

Mr. Jefferis said raising the finance for converting a former property into a 160-bedroom Coco Reef resort in Tobago had been a miserable experience after the capital financing he had been expecting never materialised.

Instead he scrambled for capital through local banks in Trinidad paying up to 14 percent interest and getting refinancing as quickly as possible.

He said he would warn other small-scale developers to beware of the low rates used by the big agencies to ?hook? business.

A lack of air visitors to the island or government funded tourism marketing also made things difficult for Mr. Jefferis in Tobago, and he resorted to setting up his own airline catering venture to lure a major airline company to Tobago.

However, having survived the first two ?difficult years? things had dramatically improved since, said Mr. Jefferis. He expanded the Coco Reef brand in 2003 when he acquired the former Stonington Beach Hotel in Bermuda and created a second Coco Reef resort.