Hello Bermuda. Newstead/Belmont Hills is the soup du jour for DJLT and his band of followers this week. What’s the story behind the story? More on this later, after the Top 20.Holding at #1 this week is Bottoms Up by Trey Songz featuring Nicki Minaj. This one is all over the radio and it kicks. Up to #2 is Can’t Be Friends by Trey Songz.Tumbling to #3 is pop icon and Queen, Rihanna with her hit Only Girl In The World; just one of many hits from her worldwide chart-ruling CD. Ke$ha’s hit pop single, We R Who We R races up the charts to #4.Falling to #5 is Just A Dream by Nelly. Up to #6 is Like a G6 by Far*East Movement featuring Cataracs & Dev. Slipping to #7 is DJ Got Us Falling In Love by Usher featuring Pitbull. Down to #8 is Holding You Down by Jazmine Sullivan. Falling to #9 is Just The Way You Are by Bruno Mars.Improving to #10 is Raise Your Glass by Pink. Improving to #11 it’s What’s My Name by Rihanna featuring Drake. Tumbling to #12 is Teenage Dream by Katy Perry.Making the big leap to #13 is Firework by Katy Perry. Up to #14 is Louder (Put Your Hands Up) by Chris Willis, a monster dance track. Improving #15 is Grenade by artist Bruno Mars.Falling to #16 is Dirty Picture by Taio Cruz featuring Ke$ha. Slipping to #17 is Champaign Life by Neo. Down to #18 is I Like It by Enrique Iglesias featuring Pitbull.Now this week’s essential new tune. In at #19 it’s Hold It Against Me by Brittney Spears. It’s nice to see her back making hits. Redemption. Kinda! New at #20 is Aston Martin Music by Rick Ross featuring Drake and Chrisette Michelle.Now back to this week’s word Newstead/Belmont Hills. I’ve read the news, listened to the statements and blogs by members of the public, some who have a clue and others who have not. So let me offer an opinion.There are many reasons why Newstead/Belmont Hills is failing. It seems that they were somewhat overleveraged and have not been able to generate sufficient revenue to meet their financial commitments.Some bloggers are trying to pin this one on the Government and have suggested that the former Premier [Ewart Brown] is to blame. Others have suggested that the current Premier [Paula Cox] and the current Minister of Business Development and Tourism [Patrice Minors] should do more and back the project. Wait a minute! Slow your role bloggers! The Government is not to blame for this hotel not being successful.I agree that something is wrong with the current tourism model that we have in Bermuda. But it is not all the Government’s fault. The first problem is the cost of doing business in Bermuda, which is one of the highest in the world, if not the highest. Few other vacation destinations or cities have similarly high costs of power, labour, construction and basic supplies that hotels in Bermuda have to incur.In December 2003, I was a presenter at a tourism forum held at the then Number 1 Shed. The research I conducted at that time showed that Bermuda had double the cost of renovating a room and energy when compared to other destinations. People want to talk a whole lot of crap, but I’m gonna share facts. In 2003, the cost to renovate a room in Bermuda was $80,000. The next expensive destination was New York, at $49,000.When we looked at the cost of energy per room night, Bermuda was again the highest at $24 per room night. New York was next, at $16 per room night. I decided that I don’t need to go search out data for 2011. I have no doubt that Bermuda still leads, probably by those same margins, in operating costs.So whilst the Government has clearly not done the best job it could have done with marketing Bermuda, a lot of our issues are related to variables over which the government has little control and for which it cannot be blamed.So where do we go from here? How do we fix the problems. It is ineffective to focus too much energy on what went wrong. Let’s focus on a fix.The Premier and the Minister of Tourism should definitely have a chat with the bank and the liquidators and should use their best efforts to save this hotel from closing.It would be nice to keep it owned by a Bermudian but in reality it isn’t owned by a Bermudian today. It’s owned by the bank and many foreign investors. And whilst the model is similar, this is nothing like a Bermudian owning a house and having a mortgage at the bank. This is high stakes poker people and Kevin may be cool, but he is swimming with the big sharks at this moment.Secondly, we have to find a way to lower the cost of running a hotel in Bermuda. There must be a solution whether hotels need to produce their own energy or cross train their staff, we have to lower the cost of doing business here. Otherwise, hotels and other businesses will continue to struggle.The marketing of Bermuda must change. We went away from something that was working, a dedicated sales force and agencies that actually had experience in the business and were not just inexperienced friends and/or family of certain key people.We also need the hotels in Bermuda to step up and do more. In other destinations like Jamaica, Sandals and Couples resorts spend just as much money as the Jamaican government more in some cases to promote their properties and by extension the destination. That’s why it seems like other destinations have more of a marketing presence than Bermuda.We need to find a turnaround strategy or strategist to help us turn the tourism industry around. I submit that the same strategy or strategist might work for all of government. But we have to be willing to listen to sound advice and make tough decisions that are not politically based but business based and logical in nature. We can’t just hire our buddies or people we know and like. People and agencies must have the right skillset and experience and they must have already done what we need done. We don’t want someone to figure it out whilst we pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars.The cheapest and quickest way to find a turnaround strategy is to dust off the Monitor Report, the Elliott Ettenberg Report and many of the other reports written on Bermuda over the past ten to 15 years and implement more of the recommendations contained in those reports. We spent good taxpayer dollars on those reports and many of them have good, logical, well researched and reasoned solutions.To Government’s credit, one of the recommendations that was acted upon is the creation of a world class public golf course now at Port Royal Golf Course. Well done, but boy did it come at a cost.But there are many more recommendations that if implemented will improve Bermuda’s Tourism industry. Let’s dig out those reports and act on them. The answers are all there. Let’s hope we can save Newstead and also encourage more hotel development in Bermuda. Peace..….....……DJLT.