The head of the world's largest society of travel agents yesterday offered suggestions on how Bermuda could improve its flagging tourism industry.

American Society of Travel Agents president, and long-time fan of Bermuda, Michael Spinelli told The Royal Gazette : "I am a person who has promoted Bermuda all my life. I first came here in 1961 and very nearly bought a guest house.'' He said he recognised that Bermuda tourism was not as strong as it had been and stressed that the key factor in tourism today was price.

"All tourism is price-driven now because there is so much competition out there. If you have a product that is nice and pricey then you will always get the low-hanging fruit.

"But it is the high-hanging fruit that fills rooms beyond the point of breaking even.'' Mr. Spinelli recommended that the Island increase its offseason marketing.

"During my whole lifetime as a travel agent I always felt that when a place was heavily booked it took a lot of extra work to book customers in. My major thrust was always toward the off-season.'' Mr. Spinelli said this was an ideal time for travel agents to send visitors to the Island.

"I found that properties fell in love with you when you sold bookings in the off-season. What normally happens is that hotels give out better rooms in the off-season because the house is not full.'' And he said travel agents simply preferred to book their clients into places where they knew the managers.

"If something happens then the agent feels he or she has someone he can call straight away.'' He shrugged off concerns about the weather dampening visitors' enthusiasm for the Island at this time of year.

"I never had one complaint about the weather and I used to send the majority of my business to Bermuda between November and March. I used to say in my brochure that Bermuda may not be as warm as Tahiti this year but it will be much warmer than New England. People were more than happy to come then.'' Increasing potential visitors' awareness about the Country was another direction in which the Island should direct its efforts, he added.

"When someone has not been here and does not know what to expect then they perceive it as a Caribbean Island. However it is very different. Bermuda is much more alive, organised and clean.

"These people would all be seeing it for the first time. Bermuda is so different. When people come here they are not just coming to an island in the Caribbean. There they are all like vanilla ice cream -- the same.'' Mr. Spinelli also noted that Bermuda was competing with package tours.

"A lot of vacations in the US are package-type. It is difficult to fight that if your regular air operating costs are high.

"If I was Bermuda I would work on a tour-based fare with air carriers that people could only get on a package tour so it would not dilute the carriers' regular and business traffic.'' Another idea, continued Mr. Spinelli, was to identify which days of the week were lighter, in terms of numbers, for air carriers and have special fares on those days.

"If they have empty seats on certain days it would behove them to sell them that way.'' And he backed the idea of a weekend cruise ship visiting the Island.

"An additional ship would be nice. I know Carnival have said they would like to do a weekend cruise.'' He said Bermuda should not be put off by how Carnival used to be perceived.

"Carnival is different than it used to be. People always felt it had a glitzy Las Vegas type atmosphere but it has grown so much.'' Mr. Spinelli said he was also aware of Bermuda's concerns when it came to tourism.

"What has always been the conundrum with Bermuda is that it has always wanted to maintain its delicate balance and not destroy the place with tourism although it is very important to the economy.'' But he pointed out: "The thing about tourism is that it is not the case where you tell the story once and that's it. It is a story that has to be told and told and told.'' Mr. Spinelli is on the Island for the annual joint meeting of chapter presidents and board of directors at the Elbow Beach Hotel which started on Wednesday and will conclude tomorrow.

A major topic of discussion, he continued, concerned where ASTA would hold its World Congress of Tourism convention in 2002.

The convention attracts some 6,000 buyers and sellers of travel.

However he also had praise for the Bermuda convention and North American sales director for tourism Toby Dillas.

"Toby Dillas set this up. It is one of the best organised that we have ever done. He made sure we saw everything. A lot of these people have not been to Bermuda so this has been great for them.'' Michael Spinelli TRAVEL TVL