Describing the creativity used by the Ministry of Tourism to market Bermuda, he says:

“Before the Club Med implosion there had never been an implosion in Bermuda.”

I agree.  I think blowing up a hotel was a great metaphor for the Ministry’s management of tourism in Bermuda.

He also justifies Bermuda’s creeping shift in focus from hotels to the development of fractional condominiums:

“Overall, we’ve seen our annual air visitor spending on-island skyrocket more than $100 million between 2005 and 2007-from 341 million to 444 million. We think the increased number of fractional owners played a role in that increase.”

First, that number sounds big, but nearly half of it is accounted for by basic inflation.  Second, I doubt that the remaining growth was due to fractionals, most of which were not even on the market at that time.  Rather it was probably due to the short term increase in business visitors after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  For a period, the island was crawling with clients and brokers all eating dinner, going golfing, etc.  That bump in business travellers – which had little to due with the marketing efforts of the Ministry of Tourism – later subsided.

My pals in the reinsurance sector say there may be another bump in business travellers beginning.  Due to the capacity crunch caused by the global economy, there is a quiet hum of activity amongst some of the Bermuda insurers.  Hopefully this will ease some of the pain felt by the collapse in leisure travellers to Bermuda.  But let’s be clear, these people are not coming to Bermuda to “feel the love”.

It’s strange that the Premier did not choose to highlight the opening of the 88-room Tuckers Point hotel today.  With all the talk of platinum, this is an actual live luxury development.   I suppose that’s because Government’s role was minimal. They provided incentives (such as customs duty rollbacks) – and got out of the way.  Plus, Government always gets a little edgy about Tuckers Town.