Government never promised to publish any sort of national tourism plan within a hundred days of the election, a top MP said.

And Tourism Minister David Allen dismissed claims by his predecessor that a turnaround in tourism was evolving under a previous five-year plan.

"We have our plan. We have been working on it since November,'' said Mr.

Allen.

And a report on accomplishments so far will be heard tomorrow during the debate of the Progressive Labour Party's first Budget.

"I will give our report card during the Budget debate. I will give that report to explain how we are implementing our plan and give a progress report on it.'' But the public and Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell would not be getting a hard copy -- such as the previous Government's Tourism in 2002 which was distributed along with the Island's daily newspaper.

"We are not going to publish this plan. We did not make a commitment to publish any document. We see it as a living document.

"We have just been quietly, but I think effectively, with the help of the National Tourism Action Group, the Tourism Board and a number of sub-committees, been putting the little and big building blocks in place.

"Over the first 100 days we have been quietly laying the foundation for the future.'' The plan encompasses issues such as product enhancement, expanding the number of airline gateways, developing niche markets in various forms of tourism, fostering hotel development, establishing a weekend cruise ship and developing the fly-cruise idea.

Mr. Dodwell suggested that Mr. Allen could have continued with the implementation of the Tourism in 2002 plan.

But Mr. Allen said: "I was not totally happy with the plan that was in place.

Obviously there are some elements that we will adopt because they are sensible but there were others that I felt were off-target.'' Mr. Dodwell also said marketing, while important, was a small part to the answer of solving the tourism problem.

Mr. Allen responded: "Marketing is very important. For him to say it's just a small part -- why did he spend over a third of his Budget on advertising and public relations if he did not think it was important? "Choosing new agencies in these areas was a very important part of the plan,'' he added.

And he justified reviewing the contracts within the tight time frame because a full agency review had not been conducted in the department since 1989. "Ours is only the second review in 27 years.'' Monday meetings will be held with all the department's agencies where presentations on the latest refinements to the Island's campaign will be made.

It is hoped that the new campaign will be up and running by April.

"I am convinced that we will have a campaign which will be exciting and dynamic and convey Bermuda in the sense of being a lush, classical beauty.'' The goal for this year, he continued, was to "move the needle'' and "change people's mindset''.

"We want people who thought they knew Bermuda to think maybe they did not know us. Maybe we are more exciting and beautiful then they realised.'' Hopefully real progress would be seen during the following year, he added.

Mr. Allen said Mr. Dodwell's claims of a number of key tourism indicators being up "certainly flies in the face of the statistics we have at Tourism.

"We are climbing out of a very deep pit.'' Between December, 1980, and December, 1998, he continued, air arrivals were down 25 percent while the number of available rooms was down 15 percent.

Air arrivals in 1998 hit 368,756 -- the first time they had been below 370,000 since 1973, he said.

Turning to bed nights, Mr. Allen said that over this 18-year period this number had dropped 34.3 percent.

And visitor expenditure was up only if inflation was factored in, he added.

"In 1980, visitor expenditure in real terms was $183 million -- when you factor out inflation. Visitor expenditure in real terms in 1998 was down 34 percent... $121.5 million.'' But he was not over-critical of the former Tourism Minister.

"I understand that the Shadow Minister has a job to do and I am looking forward to him being a vigilant watchdog as I was for many years.'' David Allen: "We have our plan. We have been working on it since November.''