An update on the National Tourism Plan led to a war of words in the Upper House this week.The clash followed an industry update by Junior Tourism Minister Vince Ingham based on statistics from a recent report.According to that report, the Island should earn $676 million from tourism expenditure by 2015, with economic contributions projected to reach $1.4 billion by 2022.The report projected another $58 million in tax income contribution by 2015 and $97 million by 2022.The results were based on feedback from more than 80 industry stakeholders, interviewed by Tourism and Leisure.On hearing the figures, One Bermuda Alliance Senator Michael Dunkley questioned Government’s ability to revive the flagging industry.He said Government’s first Tourism Minister, the late David Allen, had promised a 100-day rescue mission for tourism.“Certainly that rescue mission must have gone afoul because we see the numbers continuing to decline. Then we saw another former Premier and Tourism Minister talk about the ‘platinum period’ for tourism and clearly that never materialised,” said Sen Dunkley.More recently, he said: “The Government has given a commitment to attain the level of 300,000 air visitors a year, which was supposed to have been met last year — we haven’t seen it yet.”It was decided “we needed a new national plan to deal with tourism” a year-and-a-half ago, he added.“In 18 months you could make two babies; you can’t make a tourism plan. We’ve lost two critical tourism seasons of revenue and employment for Bermudians.“So I’m cynical at best today when I hear this update because it brings me back to the election of 2007, when we heard about the Hopkins Report on education. There was all these great sound bites before that election that they would get on top on education — and we all know how that progress hadn’t been as quick as people would like.“Here we are now 18 months into no plan and still we have all these nice sound bites in front of an election.”Sen Dunkley continued: “While air arrivals were plummeting like an anchor when you throw it off the front of a boat, cruise numbers were going up. So the Government took their eye off the total strategy and just focused on one plank of it to the detriment of the people of Bermuda.“When they come up with increasing economic contributions for Bermuda by stating these numbers it all sounds good and promising without any information to show that it’s actually attainable because we know this Government hasn’t been able to attain any of their tourism promises to date.”Senator Ingham took issue with Sen Dunkley’s comments.“This issue of looking at numbers is a great way of trying to make a point but it’s a backward point of view. The numbers had been declining in tourism long before 1998 and I’m sure he’s aware of that. We’ve had an issue with tourism which I can acknowledge plain and simple.“The fact that we have developed a National Tourism Plan to address the future is what I think is important here. The future is not as Sen Dunkley would like the public to think since his views are grounded in the past.“We can continue to have a conversation about what has not happened and what has not transpired and I wish him well with that but quite frankly the conversation now should be rightly about the future. And the National Tourism Plan is a conversation about the future not the past.”Sen Ingham described Tourism and Leisure’s review of tourism services and products as “one of the most comprehensive” ever conducted for Bermuda.“He has not been privy to this because the work is still being finalised but the diagnostic review was completed and is the foundation of the National Tourism Plan because it provides the facts and figures that we believe enable us to make the predictions and projections that are included in this plan,” he said.“This is not a plan that’s founded in opinion or the past, this is a plan that’s very much structured around what we believe we can do in the future.”He continued: “This plan will bring a whole different view to all Bermudians and I believe the objectives of this plan in terms of returning Bermuda to a year-round destination, not just six months but 12 months is a realisable goal in this plan.”