I have a question: why was the thought of bringing cruise ships as floating hotels to supplement the need for hotel beds during the America’s Cup a brilliant idea, while in general we discriminate against the very thought of increased cruise visitors?

If we had the “floating hotels” for AC35, would they not have ventured towards the beaches and other features of Bermuda? Why was it going to be acceptable for the six weeks and more of AC35, but as an overall tourism strategy frowned upon?

The idea was great, but does it reveal we have a selective value system, controlled not by long-term policy, but political expediency?

I hear it all the time: “We don’t need these penny-pinching T-shirt purchasers who return to the ships for their basic goods and spend only about $20 a day in the local economy.”

Is it their problem that they don’t spend or is it partly ours? What happened to the old terminology “tourist trap”? Can we not create enough traps to entice them to spend perhaps $40 or $50 per day?

We have so much unused resources, such as beaches and water spots that are hardly if ever used because they have never been developed for such. They can be developed with taste, preserving their natural charm and beauty, without making the coastline look like a commercial edifice with over-construction. We seem to be able to break our assumptions whenever it is convenient, then hold with a strange hypocrisy with quotes of all manner of presumed wisdom to justify an elitist airline-based tourism strategy.

No one will argue that air visitors bring more substance to the island’s economy, but there has been a revolution in the accommodation and tourist industry worldwide, and cruise ships are very much a part of the future trend of tourism. No longer are cruise ships just a means of transport: they became floating hotels and now they are floating resorts, cheaper to build then their rival land-based hotels.

Isn’t the issue one of upping our game comprehensively to be able to accommodate and learn how to manipulate the cruise industry and to get more out of it? This is one area where our old pirating instincts and, yes, heritage have been wasted as we try to live up to a paradigm of quaint nobility that is unsustainable.

Simple question: which would you prefer to solve — the problem of having too many visitors or too few? Ask any retailer which problem they prefer. Would they rather have a line waiting at the door, like a Tim Hortons, or barely enough patronage where they have to frequently lay off staff or cut menus and hours of operation to meet expenses?

We did the appropriate thing by relaxing the dress code; we no longer need to carry a jacket and tie to eat in a decent restaurant.

We need to continue taking our minds out of the sky and bring our chin down a bit more because we cannot all survive off the champagne and Pinot noir sales.

We need to think of how to open up our infrastructure to enable more water tours and seaports for entertainment. Transport is an essential component and our waterways are underused. It will take a significant investment to bring Bermuda into the kind of total destination while maintaining its charm, but it would be worth it.

Bermuda is one of the few destinations where you can travel about the whole island as opposed to being stuck on a resort because the rest of the country is too dangerous. This is our natural advantage and we must use it. Let’s revisit tourism, open up the doors and remake Bermuda as a total experience.