visitors from the United States are more relaxed. After all, figures in the United States show that consumer spending is increasing despite the fact that May showed a drop in personal income.

The truth is that tourism has had a long string of not very good or rather ordinary years. The recession was no help but Bermudians did not try very hard either. It seems to us that every time there is potential for a good year some event occurs which is guaranteed to alarm travel agents and discourage visitors.

The overall picture gives the impression that Bermudians are not really very interested in tourism. Somehow Bermudians have learned, perhaps because tourism has been with us for so long, to take tourism for granted and to look at it as a kind of necessary inconvenience. We think that attitude extends from the people of Bermuda to Government.

Government has been happy for about ten years now to continue promoting a pattern of tourism based in the huge successes of the Fifties and Sixties. In very many ways Bermuda set the standards for island tourism largely thanks to the vision of Sir Henry Vesey. Yet we have failed to take full advantage of the tourism trends of more recent years and Bermuda has been replaced by more dynamic but often less attractive resorts.

The major example is Bermuda's failure to understand the public fascination with the world under water. We had some of the first glass bottom boats and the world of diving virtually began here in Bermuda. It was a natural. In the days after the Second World War Bermuda Bronson Hartley and Park Breck had some of the first diving operations anywhere, yet we failed to capitalise on diving the way other islands have.

Bermuda's shops were the showcase for European goods. Yet as America lowered its tariff structure and malls with sales began to prevail in the US, Bermuda failed to revise its tax structure to allow Bermuda to continue as a shopping experience for visitors. Taking tourism for granted led us during the good years to allow visitor facilities and service to slip, in some cases to slip badly, while prices increased to meet high wage demands and the cost of high living in Bermuda.

Remaining rooted in the Fifties and Sixties has encouraged us to accept advertising agencies which please us but may well not suit the tourism market.

Bermudians like the quaint tourism ads appearing in the United States because they portray Bermuda in a nostalgic way which pleases Bermudians but we have doubts about how many visitors the advertising produces.

It is time now to completely rethink tourism in Bermuda. Tourism today is far too tangled in petty politics. We think the industry should be removed from artificial constraints placed on it by being Government run and released to more adventurous professionals in the fields of industry development and promotion.

Government's role should be to provide the finances to promote the industry overseas and that financing could be controlled by the Ministry of Finance.

The Chamber of Commerce and something like the Hotel Association could deal with internal promotion in terms of looking after travel agents and other "visiting firemen''.

People hate to give up their empires and it may be difficult to separate tourism from Government but it appears to be necessary. A tourism quango may be the answer but that may not be far enough removed from Government. It is time to treat tourism as the complex business that it is.