greeted with something less than alarm by many of the Island's leaders.

This is mind-boggling. One of the Island's major resorts (and one of the last in the East End) -- responsible for the employment of hundreds of Bermudians, will close -- yet the response has been one of resignation mixed in with the hope that a redeveloped property opening some time in 2001 will result in a more viable hotel.

There seems to be little concern that the 300 employees will have a difficult time finding work in an industry which has lost hundreds of hotel beds in the last decade.

Nor is there very much recognition that Government's plans to rebuild the tourism industry will be hampered by the loss of capacity, at least in the short term.

This is not to say that there have not been problems at the Castle Harbour, or that Marriott, and more recently owners Bermuda Properties Ltd., have had to swallow millions of dollars in losses over the years.

Nor does it mean that the property should not be redeveloped; the closure is symptomatic of the ills of the whole tourism industry. It suffers from an old plant and high costs which make the property uncompetitive.

But it is by no means certain that the company's redevelopment plans will restore the Castle Harbour's tarnished lustre; the scheme depends heavily on residential units which are supposed to provide spillover benefits to the hotel. It may work. But it may not -- and that will hasten the demise of a major hotel and bring benefits only to BPL, a company made up largely of non-Bermudians whose predecessors were handed the property to build the tourism industry, not the housing sector.

Leaving aside the potential damage to the environment which the redevelopment could cause, there is very little tangible evidence that it will help the Castle Harbour Hotel or the tourism industry overall.

Still, it is to be hoped that it will work; Bermuda's hotels are old and need to be upgraded, but no amount of spending will help until Bermuda also reduces its costs.

One of the major components of costs is wages and salaries and some time ago, this newspaper praised the Bermuda Industrial Union and the Hotel Employers of Bermuda for reaching an amicable agreement quickly and with little rancour.

That agreement saw employees get a three percent annual wage increase which was reasonable. But the union and the employers now need to work together to find ways to find more efficiencies. If they fail, the result will be more closures and more unemployment. The union should keep in mind that three percent of nothing is still nothing.

The union also needs to remember that nothing is more damaging to the hotel industry than work stoppages and strikes, which have occurred at two different hotels twice this week.

There are procedures and legislation in place to deal with grievances -- many of which could be legitimate -- and they should be followed. Failure to do so will only mean that more visitors will never return.