The Boston based company's Mike Fairbanks told a concerned audience, "You are not in the position of being the world's best tourist destination. You were the best and you can be the best again.'' That is hard to swallow for Bermudians who have a history of knowing that Bermuda is the best of the islands. But, it is true. Monitor officials have made it clear that Bermuda was once a world leader but has stood still and is now in a position where it has to pick itself up and start again to build a new shared vision of tourism.

One quote was, "You need to become so good at `doing tourism', with your expert knowledge, so the rest of the world calls Bermuda to help them out.'' As we see it the most important phrase here is "start again to build a new shared vision of tourism''.

What this really calls for is a national effort and togetherness to rebuild the industry which made Bermuda famous and made the Country both wealthy and the envy of the tourist industry. That is a considerable challenge for a Country which allowed tourism to decline because it took visitors and their needs for granted and allowed prices to rise while the quality of the visitor experience declined. Bermudians allowed themselves to become careless with tourism because they believed that it could not be damaged, would boom forever and they did not forsee the damage their attitudes were doing to themselves and their Country. We thought the golden egg would go on being large and shiny even as we allowed the goose to become old and sick.

Monitor was not hired to effect solutions but to point out to Bermudians where they had gone wrong and how they might, if they only will, cure the tourism ills. That is all Monitor can do. The rest is up to Bermuda.

So far there has been a good deal of finger pointing and a fair measure of allocating blame to this or that section of the industry, to the managers or the owners, to the workers or the union, to tourism officials or to retailers.

As far as we are concerned it is too late for that and attributing blame will not help to solve the problem.

Bermuda should try its best to forget the problems of the past in tourism relations and get on with the future. As Monitor said, "Start again to build a new shared vision of tourism''. We think Bermuda needs to add to that shared vision a rededication to the visitors who have made Bermuda rich and to the industry which is still vital to all of us.

The people need to understand and the politicians need to accept that tourism problems are national problems and require shared solutions.