Breen, Karen Smith and Magnus Henagulph Tourism Minister David Allen has presided over a two-and-a-half year disaster for the industry and had run out of excuses, Shadow Toursim Minister David Dodwell claimed yesterday.

He kicked off a lengthy debate on the industry saying last year was the worst in 20 years and that Mr. Allen made the mistake of trying to market the Island out of the crisis rather than improve the product.

"In the Budget, Government said tourism will take second place to international business and that is astounding for a Government that used tourism to drive it to office,'' said Mr. Dodwell.

"Government has written this year off and we're being told not to put a lot of faith in this year.'' He noted arrivals were 11,000 down for the year, even though cruise numbers were up by 14,000 to a record 210,000.

"We've had a disastrous year. I can't rephrase it any other way. The Premier said in her Christmas message that we had a turnaround. We continue to be astounded,'' he said.

"Government talked about a 100 day rescue plan (in its manifesto) but we've moved from a 100 day rescue plan to a 875 day failure.'' Mr. Dodwell said the country was being "set up'' for further failures in tourism.

Hotel occupancy was up two percent, but there were fewer hotel beds. Bed nights were down 12.5 percent and employment in hotels and restaurants was down 9.3 percent.

Mr. Dodwell said satisfaction levels had tumbled to an all-time low in the past two years. Last year only 52 percent of visitors thought they were getting value for money, compared to figures of 63, 64 and 65 percent when the UBP left office, he said.

"It has a lot to do with the problems we have and we are not prepared to look at it. The minister thinks we can market our way out, but the problem is our product and what we think of tourism.'' He described Mr. Allen's claim that hotels have little room to take extra visitors as "vodoo statistics'' because hoteliers were crying out for more guests.

Although the `conduit alliance'' report was finally being produced yesterday, he accused the PLP of wasting two and a half years.

Calling Mr. Allen `the Minister of Travel' Mr. Dodwell begged the minister to stop spending so much time travelling overseas and instead spend the money and time on the Island itself.

He said: "This is a minister who claims to be a master strategist -- he has a master plan. He says he has all the answers and says `follow me'.

"But there has to be 60,000 strategists. The whole population needs to be brought along. He cannot do it on his own'' Mr. Dodwell said there were a number of reasons why he believed the tourism industry was continuing to plummet, but he said the fact that Government had failed to deliver a plan until yesterday was the biggest problem.

However, he also said Mr. Allen's focus was all wrong, and said he needed to reduce his marketing and promotional budget and instead invest the money into improving the attitude toward tourists on the Island.

The Shadow Minister added: "We are on a roller coaster here. But when you ride a roller coaster you get dizzy and you get sick.

"The people are being promised things, so we go to the top of roller coaster, but they never arrive, so we are at the bottom again.

"There are a lot of quick fixes. You can talk for as long, but eventually the results have to come.'' And he said Mr. Allen should be labelled `the minister who cannot close a deal', particularly in his attempts to bring in new hotel developers for the Belmont and Club Med.

And he said that despite the millions of dollars being spent, Bermuda was not set to see a decent return on its cash for some time.

Mr. Dodwell urged Government to do an in-depth study of tourism on the Island, and then use it as a benchmark and follow it up every year to see if Bermuda was making progress.

But most important, he said Mr. Allen should concentrate his efforts on the Island, by spending time here.

He added: "The Minister of T should be the Minister of Tourism, but in this case I think he is the Minister of Travel.

"The Minister of Tourism needs to be here. He can't do it travelling all over the world. The Premier has to realise that. It is her responsibility.

"I appeal to the Minister of Tourism to stay at home. The only way we are going to turn this around is if we have a Minister of Tourism that stays at home and sees what is happening.'' Another area in desperate need of attention was that of entertainment, Mr.

Dodwell said.

The Shadow Minister said people on holiday simply had nothing to do at night.

And he said providing music at the airport and cruise ship terminals was not the answer.

He said it was not just the hotels' responsibility to provide entertainment, but the Island as a whole. However, he said Government should cut through the red tape to make it easier for people to start businesses.

And he said he believed tourists wanted outdoor entertainment, such as the Island music played at Hawkins Island.

And to this end, he urged Government to consider giving tax relief to nightclubs, restaurants and bars as an incentive for them to provide more entertainment.

Mr. Dodwell, who owns The Reefs hotel in Southampton, said people might wonder why he was investing heavily into refurbishing the hotel this winter when he believed Government's tourism strategy was failing.

And Mr. Dodwell also held up several magazine advertisements of holiday destinations promoting themselves with beautiful photographs, such as the mountains in New Zealand, but said Bermuda was failing in that department also, despite having one of the leading ad agencies in the world working for us.

The page he held up of Bermuda promoting itself contained a blow up photograph of a tree frog. The caption above it read: "In Bermuda, even the frogs are courteous''.

It went on to say that the frogs sing at night, rather than chirp.

He added: "Is this the type of ad that is going to entice people to Bermuda?'' Mr. Dodwell did compliment "Bermuda Now'' a quarterly newsletter distributed by the Tourism Department.

He said it was an "excellent news letter'' that was good at communicating developments in the Islands Tourism industry, and that it was inexpensive and "beats a road show''.

He finished his statement with a quote from John Foster Dallas, creator of the United Nations, who said: "The measure of success is not weather you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you dealt with last year.'' Tourism Minister David Allen then took the floor of the House and responded to Mr. Dodwell's many questions and criticisms.

Mr. Allen started by mentioning Janice Frost, who was sitting in the pubic viewing gallery with her husband Jack.

He said that they had chartered a plane to come to the Island for her 61st birthday with a plane load of friends and said that this shows the tremendous recognition in the world at large that Bermuda has a superior product and provides visitors with an enriching experience.

Mr. Allen said that Bermuda was not the typical sea, sun, sand and surf destination, but offered so much more, and said that the product will continue to be improved.

He then spoke about how tourism got to where it was and said that since 1980, arrivals had been in a steady decline, and that air arrivals had fallen from 609,000 to 369,530 in 1998.

Covereage continues on Monday David Allen David Dodwell