chiefs and Government to reduce the financially weak industry's operating costs.

The Bermuda Industrial Union is meeting with its hotels division members over redundancies at Sonesta Beach and the ongoing dispute with hotels over gratuities.

Tourism Minister the Hon. C.V. (Jim) Woolridge is upbeat over the tourism industry and expects a 10 percent growth in the industry this year.

Opposition spokesman on Tourism Mr. David Allen says that Mr. Woolridge is complacent, everything is not wonderful and Bermuda has fallen behind.

All that was in this newspaper's pages yesterday seems to signal the start of the tourism season for 1994.

This is the year Bermuda hopes will put tourism back in high gear after some bad travel years in North America and some bad recession years for both Bermuda's hotels and Bermuda's hotel workers.

There are people who still do not believe the very real plight of Bermuda's hotels despite financial disclosure. There seems to be real thinking that, somehow, the hotels hide their profits. We think that hotel operators in Bermuda face generally high operating costs and do not always get the consideration they deserve from Government. The latter problem arises because every time Government tries to give hotels a break, there is criticism which encourages people to think that Government favours the hotels at the expense of Bermudians' pockets. In fact, Government has a duty to see that a major source of revenue, the premier industry, remains viable.

Bermuda's hotels face stiff competition from resorts in areas where costs are lower and the sun shines brighter. They are in a self-defeating situation of reducing service to cut costs while having to charge top dollar. The hotels also have to have sufficient earnings to refurbish their properties or else visitors stay away. We were alarmed to see a suggestion from Mr. Woolridge that first-time visitors are not satisfied with accommodation. Some of Bermuda's hotels are getting old but are unlikely to be replaced if their business is not very lucrative. Whether Ritz-Carlton will ever be built we do not know, but we have serious doubts.

For some years now it has seemed that every time tourism began to move forward, Bermuda has found a way to shoot itself in the foot. It is true that as a country we are fast developing international business as a source of income and that it now matches tourism as a money earner for Bermudians. It is also true that Bermudians no longer seem anxious to work in service in the tourist industry preferring the "cleaner'' office jobs supplied by business.

But the fact remains that tourism is the traditional industry and is responsible for Bermuda's elaborate lifestyle, and the travel, and the overseas education, and the much debated buying trips abroad. Reduction to a one-industry economy and excessive reliance on international business would be a mistake.

Bermuda already has two major hotels closed and we think that 1994 could be a make-or-break year for some of Bermuda's other resorts, large and small. We have already seen the very Bermudian Glencoe disappear. Others could well follow with the attendant loss of income and the loss of jobs.