April 26, 2011Dear Sir,I'm writing in reply to Mr Guilden M Gilbert's letter dated April 1, 2011.Mr Gilbert, please let me first bring to your attention the point I wanted to make when I'd written that letter stating Bermuda is ahead of the Bahamas economically. We had been (I'm using past tense) more lucrative in bygone years and we do know what it will take for us to regain that status we'd once held onto with esteem …Granted I haven't been to the Bahamas for a number of years and maybe I'd “been putting the cart before the horse “ and if I'd insulted anyone please accept my apologies … Mr Gilbert, the Bahamas is far larger than Bermuda (as you already know) and does offer an exceptional amount of activities, far more than Bermuda, i.e. gambling casinos, boating excursions and even island hopping via seaplanes services (“Chalk” if they're still flying ) or possibly others, so subsequently, they are self supported, much more so than Bermuda.The point I would like to make is, we here in Bermuda, we don't have inexpensive flights arriving daily … we are more than “a stone's throw” away from the coast of USA or numerous other islands and I believe this too contributes to our downfall.First the Department of Tourism in Bermuda must be more charismatic ...what was the old saying, ”You can catch more flies with honey…” well, that is what Bermuda Govt must do in order to attract more visitors … The tourists have to be lured here by offering them something no one else has…First, for us to be able to achieve these goals we have to stop the ignorance that has infested the Island and learn how to rekindle the Bermudian habits of years gone by.To begin by being more courteous to our visitors starting from our ports of entry. Everyone here that interacts with our visitors has to acknowledge the importance of our visitors so that we may climb out of this rut we seem to have fallen into.RAYMOND RAYSt George's