Those comments have been applied to Bermuda's tourism industry by a person who should know and understand the problems. David Mitchell, whose Connecticut company represents 400 hotel properties worldwide, was addressing himself to problems faced by some of the older islands in the tourism industry, including Bermuda. His remarks were carried in the magazine Caribbean Tourism Today and printed in last Saturday's Royal Gazette .

We think Mr. Mitchell's views should confirm all sorts of suspicions for Bermudians. This is especially true since he also points out that Bermuda is a mature destination facing increased competition, a pattern of shorter US vacations and more demanding visitors who expect more than sun, sand, food and rest. Mr. Mitchell says Bermuda is going to have to attract more long-stay European visitors to counteract the short-stay US visitors. However, he feels Europe is in a deep recession which may be deepening and Bermuda could be chasing a European visitor who is not there.

When the problems are put together by an experienced observer like Mr.

Mitchell it becomes clear that it is time for Bermuda to take a hard look at what it expects tourism to supply and what it is willing to give to keep visitors happy.

For some years now Bermuda has taken tourism for granted as a cash industry that would never stop producing no matter how much disruption and neglect we inflicted on it. Bermuda has gone a long way toward discouraging rather than welcoming visitors. We have charged top dollar for old hotels with declining facilities and indifferent service. We have inflicted our own problems on high paying visitors and subjected them to stops and starts in the hotels at whim over labour disputes. We have humiliated them with Airport body searches and scared them nearly to death with road traffic.

Bermudians do not appear to have been really concerned about our future as a tourist resort nor do we seem to have been willing to solve problems and supply what we promise visitors, a happy and carefree holiday.

We have applied a good many Band Aids to our problems, hoping they would go away and our visitors would not notice. We have applied very similar Band Aids in terms of patching old hotels and pretending they meet today's standards.

But Bermuda has deeper problems. We think that Bermudians no longer want to be in a service industry because they resent the concept of service. There seems to be a reluctance to accept the inconveniences necessary to be sure that visitors are accommodated. It may be that Bermudians are less and less inclined to make the effort necessary to welcome visitors and make them comfortable in Bermuda.

If we are serious about tourism and want to go on taking the wealth visitors supply for Bermuda, then it is time to take a hard look at the industry as it exists today in Bermuda. This newspaper believes that Bermuda still thinks of tourism as being the way it was in the good days of the Sixties. We still promote our tourism and aim our product just the way Sir Henry Vesey did.

We need to turn Tourism into a Quango and we need to staff Tourism with experienced promoters. Bermuda has to recreate itself as THE resort of the year 2000. Mr. Mitchell rightly called us a "mature destination'' and a "grande dame'' of the industry. We need to prove him wrong.