A renewed call for casinos was among the ideas former Premier Sir John Swan offered up in a speech on Saturday to the Institute of Directors.

The former Premier, who has long been an advocate of opening a casino to help reinvigorate the tourism industry, tied his call to a general speech on making timely decisions to ensure continued growth of international business and pull the tourism industry out of recession.

For the past few years, Sir John has been involved in a personal campaign to see Bermuda redevelop the Hamilton waterfront.

He told the crowd on Saturday that a casino would make this redevelopment more viable and help Bermuda become more competitive with other destinations world-wide by bringing in ?huge amounts of earnings that would pay for the redevelopment and that can be used for other projects in the community?.

Other benefits of casinos would include additional employment for locals ? either on a full-time basis or as secondary income ? and additional entertainment for vacationers and high-ranking businessmen.

?Other places in the world which have been known for their conservatism, places like Singapore have agreed to have casinos and Pennsylvania and Delaware have considered opening casinos as a way of dealing with some the financial challenges that they are facing as a result of the new direction that the world is headed in,? Sir John said. ?It is obvious, if we do not create a socially acceptable environment for our customers, international business and tourists, they will go elsewhere where it is available.?