scrap its law against gay sex.

That was the warning yesterday from activists in the US, the Island's major source of visitors.

Gay travel agents, who together control a billion dollars worth of tourism business, are already telling travellers to stay away from Colorado, where they say an anti-gay law has been passed.

Campaigners say travellers who are gay or concerned about human rights are choosing ski vacations elsewhere, while convention organisers are cancelling events or staying away.

The Colorado boycott has been backed by celebrities including top actress Whoopi Goldberg and TV star Joan Rivers.

US activists want Bermuda to scrap a rarely-used law that lays down a jail sentence of up to 10 years for gay men who have sex, even if they are consenting partners in private.

A letter-writing campaign to the Bermuda and British governments is under way and activists on the Island are being mobilised.

Mr. Walt Marlowe, administrator of the Florida-based International Gay Travel Association, said his group covered 600 gay travel firms.

It is backing the Colorado boycott and would join any similar campaign against Bermuda, he said.

"Gay people are very sensitive to this issue,'' he said. "It's a significant influence on people who are travelling if they are not welcome in an area.

"We're certainly not going to areas where we're treated as second class citizens.

"And what most people don't understand is that across the board in all areas of management and decision-making, there are gay men and women, and they can use their influence.'' Gay people had a lot of spending power, he said. "They have disposable income to spend, probably twice what the average person has, because they don't have children in most cases.'' He said the law on homosexual sex in Bermuda was "terrible'' and should be removed from the books.

In Colorado, where tourism is the second biggest industry, human rights activists say hoteliers and resort operators are beginning to feel the effects of the boycott.

"It's not just gay consumers that are outraged,'' said Ms Terry Schleder of the group Boycott Colorado Inc. "Anyone who is concerned with civil rights is targeting Colorado, and all minorities are very worried.'' Amendment 2, passed by Colorado voters on November 3, bars local authorities from giving gay people special protection in housing and jobs, and repeals gay rights laws in Aspen, Boulder and Denver.

The American Civil Liberties Union has sued Colorado in state court in an attempt to block the amendment, and has calls for a boycott against the state and its products have mounted since the amendment.

City councils in Atlanta and Philadelphia have approved measures preventing city employees from traveling to Colorado on official business.

Denver Mayor Wellington Webb has gone on Arsenio Hall's late-night talk show to plead against a boycott and went to New York to meet with Mayor David Dinkins to head off a boycott by the US League of Mayors.