Dodwell looks back at the successes and failures of his first year in office and discusses his plans for the future.

Tourism Minister David Dodwell admits he is disappointed that his goal of bringing an extra 25,000 visitors to the Island this year is unlikely to be achieved.

By the end of September this year, there were 470,237 overall visitors to the Island, while there were 451,901 in the same period last year, an increase of almost 19,000 visitors or four percent.

More worryingly, bednights for visitors who come by air are down 1.9 percent for the year to date, which suggests that overall spending is also down.

But Mr. Dodwell said the 25,000 target had provided a goal for everyone to work towards, and a new communications effectiveness study had shown a turn around.

Meanwhile Mr. Dodwell said his long term goal was to "reposition'' the Island and give the community "new vision''.

"The decline in our tourism did not happen overnight so it is understandable that it will take time to correct the trend and change it,'' he said.

"It may sound as if I'm being defensive but you don't get a new Minister and a plan and turn things around overnight. Bermuda has to turn around and adopt a long term product change -- marketing won't do it alone.'' Mr. Dodwell gave six reasons for the decline in the Island's tourism industry.

And he said people had control over three of these while they did not over the others.

The three that could be controlled were: Marketing; The product itself; and The attitude of people in the industry.

The areas which Bermuda cannot control were: Competition from other destinations; The perception of price; and "Value for money'' and the economies of countries. "You cannot control people's financial capability to travel,'' said. Mr. Dodwell.

If Bermuda was perceived as being an expensive place to visit, the Island had to evolve to change people's thinking to "yes, it is expensive but worth it''.

And Bermuda had to realise it was not going to get the same visitors returning every year.

But if Bermuda did a good job, he said, then it could get the same people returning every three years.

This was because there was so much competition with locations offering so many different and unusual things to attract today's traveller -- who was seeking "enrichment'' through adventure and "trying something new''.

And this, said Mr. Dodwell, led to his belief that Bermuda had to "reinvent itself'' and "provide something new''.

"So looking long term, we have to evolve our product and bring it along while maintaining traditions and standards which are good about Bermuda,'' he said.

"We have to provide something new for the customer because that is where we lost our way -- we stopped focusing on the customer and lost our passion for tourism.'' Looking ahead to next year, said Mr. Dodwell, the department would be evolving and modifying its campaign for 1997.

He said the communications effectiveness study showed the campaign had given Bermuda "good grounding'' and he felt encouraged by the direction tourism had taken.

The "Let Yourself Go'' theme would be kept as it had rated very highly and he said he believed it worked well with the new image of Bermuda as a romantic destination with a lot of fun activities to offer.

On this note, the department would be focusing "much more'' on water activities this upcoming year, he said.

And Mr. Dodwell added: "My hope is to be able to produce a television spot that focuses on the water -- with romance and activities on the water as the main focus.'' This would combine with the headway made by the Chamber of Commerce in making water sport operators more cohesive.

New ideas had been implemented including a common brochure for the operators and generic advertising by scuba operators.

"By working together we can implement 250 square miles, not just 20,'' said Mr. Dodwell.

Local dive shops had already introduced the wreck diving programme and certificate which had proved popular and would be developed further.

And the department was visited by a representative of Jean Michel Cousteau's certified snorkelling programme with an interest in setting up their operation at some of the Island's hotels.

Branches of Jean Michel Cousteau's operation have been set up throughout the Caribbean and had proved popular with many visitors, especially those who were not keen on the idea of scuba diving.

And the department would also increase its one-on-one marketing.

Mr. Dodwell said: "It never ceases to amaze me how much we have to remind people where we are and how easy we are to get to.'' To try and solve this, he continued, the department would start "relationship marketing'' and get into specific target areas and go after different types of individuals by communicating with them directly.

Direct mail to peoples' homes and advertising in small newspapers would target a "much more focused market''.

Mr. Dodwell said a segmentation study through the US firm Claritas would be used to identify the people the department wanted to reach on this one-on-one basis.

He said this company had a huge data base of information on demographics from around the country and could identify where targeted individuals worked, where they spent their income and where they lived.

Mr. Dodwell said he was "excited'' about the Island's prospects but added: "People expect so much in a short period of time''.

The department had been busy over the year with the implementation of the new marketing programme, the introduction of the Visitor Industry Partnership programme and the Jazz Festival among other schemes.

But while arrival numbers had not skyrocketed, he stressed: "You can't measure marketing success just like that.'' And the department will not be idle as it continues to "retool, restructure and reengineer'' its approach to finding new visitors and bringing them to the Island.

Mr. Dodwell said: "I would like to find a way to present the public with our total marketing plan. It's easy to show a few television commercials but it is multi-faceted.

"It's not even tourism alone. We have partnerships with many organisations including the hotels, destination management companies and the Chamber of Commerce.

"We put our money together and work together which gives us that partnership effort and more bang for our buck.'' CHANGING ATTITUDES -- Tourism Minister David Dodwell