increase the Airport's public facilities are overdue. Many travellers have found it hard to believe that Bermuda's airport had no "duty free'' area.

This shows that sometimes it takes a crisis like the return of the Bases to get things moving.

However there are still other problems at the Bermuda International Airport which need to be addressed.

Despite repeated complaints, very little has been done to make airport arrival procedures easier on visitors and local residents. If visitors expect a warm welcome to Bermuda, it will be hard to find at the Airport. Yet, for many people the Airport is their first impression of Bermuda ... officious, cold, unfriendly and generally unwelcoming.

That is not restricted to holiday-makers. There are endless stories about important non-Bermudian business travellers and long-term residents of Bermuda who are hassled for one reason or another on arrival. Many of these stories would never be told if a little courtesy and some common sense had been exercised.

For several years we have been promised a security card system which would allow frequent business travellers to pass through Immigration and Customs quickly. Canada now has such a system for frequent travellers to the United States. There is no reason why Bermuda cannot operate such a system for the convenience of our international companies. Why don't we have it? Perhaps inefficiency.

Given the increase in private aircraft and the value to Bermuda of the people who travel on those aircraft, we need to provide service. Recently special services seem to have been reduced for reasons we do not understand. The object should be to make things more attractive for the people who provide us with a good living, not more difficult.

Once there was a broadcast message from the Minister of Tourism welcoming visitors to our shores. Now there is a rather harsh and very cold announcement about having documents and return tickets ready for inspection. Does anyone say welcome. Not really.

The official procedures are not very friendly. Often they start at the place of embarkation where visitors bound for Bermuda are turned away because their identification is unacceptable. This is done by airline personnel who have no authority to use their judgment. They are simply told that if people arrive in Bermuda without proper identification the airline will be responsible for taking them back.

But if a potential visitor asks what documents are required to travel to Bermuda, they do not always get the same answer. Do we have so many people come to Bermuda illegally that we really need to offend other people by being such sticklers about identification? Yes, we will have the occasional troublesome visitor, as does every resort, but Bermuda is so small that they are not hard to spot. Surely it is unwise to offend large numbers of people because we are frightened that a few will be a problem.

Bermudians complain a great deal if they are badly treated trying to enter someone else's country yet we do not apply the same standards to ourselves. We seem intent on officiously reinforcing petty regulations on our guests yet we live well because of our guests.