revival for tourism. For many years Bermuda seemed to have the ability to turn the visitor numbers back on after crises and, perhaps, people grew complacent.

There was an assumption that, no matter what, visitors would keep coming. The assumption was wrong. It was possible to seriously wound the goose that laid a very golden egg.

Bermudians are now prone to making excuses for very sluggish visitor numbers, declining bed nights and reduced visitor spending. Excuses like, Americans are staying home and travelling in America, are no help. Many of the resorts which compete with Bermuda are not having problems with their tourism. Under fire and threatened with being turned into a quango, the Department of Tourism is trying to blame some of the problems on this newspaper's Internet site.

Merchants who are suffering have a tendency to blame the Minister of Tourism, David Dodwell. Yet we see Mr. Dodwell, who inherited the problems in tourism, as part of the solution and not part of the problem. He understands the problems. He is working endlessly to get things moving and he is heavily behind the Monitor probe. Just why he continues to defend the "Let Yourself Go'' advertising campaign when figures show tourism is not responding, we do not know. Bermuda is told that survey's show that potential visitors are influenced by the campaign. That's fine, but where are they? Obviously Bermuda cannot be in the numbers game but visitor spending indicates that these days we are not in the quality game either. We need to know where to place ourselves in the visitor market. That's where Monitor comes in.

It is fair to say that Monitor is moving ahead with its study of tourism and Bermuda. We do not know, but we suspect that Monitor will recommend a new approach and a new attitude to tourism in Bermuda. The problem will be to get the Government, the Opposition and Bermudians themselves to agree to carry out Monitor's changes. Where outside reports are concerned, Bermudians are traditionally certain that they know best and Government is notorious for paying scant attention to outside advice.

We think that Bermuda could find itself with a tourism lifeline provided by Monitor but which it refuses to grasp. Traditionally the Government has been frightened to make change for fear of upsetting any voters and it is not in the Opposition's interest to agree to change which might make the Government look good, never mind the overall good of the Country.

We do not think that the problems with tourism are going to be solved without a national effort. Solutions will not be possible without general acceptance of the problems. If Bermuda goes on thinking that tourism can right itself then we will be deciding that Bermuda no longer wants to take tourism seriously.