The head of a Canadian travel agency has called on Bermuda to embrace international hotel chains if it wants its smaller guest properties to survive.

And Toronto-based Butterfield & Robinson president George Butterfield -- a Bermudian -- told The Royal Gazette that Bermuda must recognise what makes it unique and enforce those qualities, particularly with its architecture.

Bermuda's problem, said Mr. Butterfield, was that nothing had changed on the Island over the past 30 years -- particularly hotels.

"But in 30 years people's expectations have soared,' he stressed. "The last great resort they visited is now the yardstick by which they measure any new destination.'' To meet this challenge, said Mr. Butterfield, the funds in Bermuda's tourism advertising budget should be redirected.

"If our goal is to bring back the heyday of Bermudian tourism, I recommend that we become more focussed in how we spend our money -- mass advertising is not paying off.

"We should spend our tourism promotion dollars on development grants, cooperative marketing agreements and other efforts to convince the international hotels to come to Bermuda and to make our local hotels more competitive.'' Mr. Butterfield said he believed that if Bermuda's hotel choices included the likes of Four Seasons, Hyatt and Ritz Carlton, it would be on the agenda of every international tourist.

And he pointed out: "The marketing organisations of these hotel chains would do the work for us to fill up their rooms.

"The side effect would be a higher consciousness of Bermuda as a tourist destination, which would benefit the entire tourism industry. There would be enormous spill over, providing the climate for great Bermudian hotels like Lantana to flourish.'' Mr. Butterfield's comments came after he received news of Lantana Colony Club's closure last week but he noted that his remarks could have followed the closure of any of Bermuda's small properties.

"Let's use the closing of Lantana as a call to action. Let's wake up from our dreamy state and realise that the only way to survive is to embrace competition and play in the international arena.'' And he stressed that while he was calling for large hotel chains, he did not want Bermuda to become another "homogenised tourist destination'' with large buildings springing up Island-wide.

It was a small Island and anything built on it had a huge effect, he noted.

"I guess buildings I see going up like the Southampton Princess and the Bank of Bermuda, I am not sure how they relate to the overall concept of what we have in Bermuda.'' And as present planning restrictions did not seem to be controlling architects' designs of these buildings, which did not fit in with Bermuda's "indigenous architectural style'', stricter regulations should be put in place to control new development and keep it uniquely Bermudian, said Mr.

Butterfield.

"We will spend the rest of our tourism promotion budget on the development of a comprehensive Island-wide urban plan that spells out exactly what makes Bermuda unique.

"Any new construction... would have to conform to the new Bermuda urban standards. Each new building would then add to the total urban composition of Bermuda to make us even more unique and more special.

"It's an easy two-part plan,'' he stressed.

"Convince the major players in the tourism industry that Bermuda is special, then develop an urban plan that keeps it that way.''