October 12, 2011Dear Sir,Do we really want mega cruise ships in Bermuda? The situation was summed up nicely by the tourists themselves this week when they said the island was beautiful but could not cope with the volume of visitors. I think that is true even when more than half the bus fleet is not out of action and a ferry has not broken down. It seems totally illogical to park two mega cruise ships at the west end and then try and provide adequate transportation to move them to Hamilton and St George. Our infrastructure cannot handle those numbers and should not want to. If we can get smaller boutique type cruise to visits all well and good although it appears they are very few in number and declining.And now St George is contemplating widening Town Cut to do something similar at the other end of the island. Surely $70m could be put to better use to develop the tourism product. That discussion also needs to think about additional hurricane/flood damage from a widened cut. You can’t put it back!Apart from the departure tax helping to keep Government going, can someone tell us just how much do cruise ship passengers contribute to the local economy? Is this really the tourism market we want to attract I don’t think so. Bermuda has always been a niche market attracting wealthy air arrivals from the east coast USA. If this can be extended to the UK, despite the BA monopoly, so be it but we need to remain a niche market different to the other islands. That is our selling point. Expensive yes, and we need a product to justify that cost which we don’t have yet. Spend the money on developing the product. A new hotel is also long overdue concentrate the effort there.I think it is folly to spend millions of dollars to accommodate more mega cruise ships let them go down south. Let’s get back to what Bermuda tourism is all about.NORTHERN SOULSmith’s