THE Bermuda Industrial Union has thrown its support behind a five-year marketing plan which would use a luxury yacht to reward travel agents and locals for superior promotion of the island.

Dendrick Taylor proposed the concept to the Department of Tourism earlier this year. That group has yet to come on board, but the BIU has agreed to air a 15-minute DVD promoting the plan prior to featured attractions at the Liberty Theatre, free of cost.

The idea, Captain Taylor explained, is to enable the public to see exactly what his company, First Ocean Marketing, is offering to inject into the island's ailing tourism industry.

"We met with Chris Furbert and Craig Trott from the Liberty Theatre, and they agreed to show it for two weeks with their main attraction for the Bermuda public to view," the industry veteran said. "What we're looking to do is give Bermudians the opportunity to see how we will present some of our productions on Bermuda. Hopefully, it will bring an awareness; hopefully, it will get people aware of what's happening with tourism in Bermuda. "

Featured in the DVD is , a $20 million, 207-foot luxury yacht. The captain believes it's enough of a showboat that the promise of a free holiday on board will encourage travel agents to push for Bermuda and, after the visit, push even harder.

He said yesterday that he decided to approach the BIU with his plans because its participation was necessary if any marketing plan is to achieve success. "That was a major hurdle for us. Most people never thought that a plan should involve the Union. But when I worked at the (former) Bermudiana Hotel, the only time a strike took place was if (it) was island-wide.

"That was only because of the excellent relationship between shop stewards and management and it's that same format I'm going to take and utilise in the concept of First Ocean Marketing.

"If we're going to be serious about introducing a five-year national tourism plan, then we have to embrace the problems with labour. And that's what I've stressed with this.

"Some of the concepts we want to introduce to the hotels will eliminate the reasons for the strikes we have in Bermuda. Once you have a strike, then you're looking at millions of dollars lost. You just don't recover from that."

Captain Taylor also intends to use the yacht ? equipped with six staterooms, an office and a commercial galley ? to reward locals who show outstanding service to tourists, with cruises between Florida and the Bahamas, and to train Bermudians to excel in the industry.

"For some time we've been trying to make Government understand you need more than a marketing plan when you introduce a five-year tourism plan; that there are certain other concepts you need to include. One, is to enhance relations between employer and employee. The other, is to reduce crime.

"We have a training course that we're going to implement. A programme designed to encourage particularly our young boys to go into the hotel industry, which I really believe is a pro-active programme that would help to reduce crime."

At the moment, his plan was waiting for a green light from Government, Captain Taylor said, stressing that success required an industry effort.

"You can't do it with just one person. It's really about taking all the professionals we have on the island now and distributing the various parts of the puzzle to them so that it all falls into place. Whether comes to Bermuda now depends on the Bermuda Government. We've got the banks ready to go. The boat is basically ready to go.

"Basically, we'd like to see (Bermuda) have a plan. Some people think we're trying to get Government to purchase the boat ? we're not. We're purchasing the boat. We want Government to buy into our marketing plan."

The first airing of First Ocean Marketing's DVD takes place at the Liberty Theatre on Sunday, prior to the movie starring Denzel Washington.