The Royal Gazette and Bermuda Sun are available online and both effectively report most of what is happening in Bermuda. It is clear that online comments do indeed hurt our tourism product however the reason people are complaining is that there are some things that are wrong. The concerns expressed by visitors and potential visitors are genuine concerns and I submit that this information is generally available online from sources other than our blogs.The definition of insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results. Well folks, we have to do something different than we’ve been doing of late, if we are to turn this thing around.I have to agree with Tourism Minister Wayne Furbert and Ms Fiona Campbell who are saying that our online comments hurt our efforts to generate additional visitors but the problem isn’t the blogs. The problem is that we have issues that cause the blogs.The problems are:1. The crimes that are still committed against both locals and visitors as well as what appears to be our inability to curb this phenomenon notwithstanding the statistics from the Bermuda Police Service which show a decline in crime. The fact that there are repeated assaults of visitors is hurting our tourism industry. The fact that there are crimes committed against local residents is also hurting tourism.2. The desperate need to increase the standard of customer service. Good customer service is provided in Bermuda some of the time or most of the time. This has to change to all the time. We cannot afford for even one visitor to have a bad Bermuda experience. When The CV (Jim) Woolridge was Minister of Tourism, sometime back in the 1990s (damn I’m getting old), he used to say that when a person has a good experience they tell seven, but if they have a bad experience they tell 700!3. Other destinations are doing it better, faster and cheaper. We have to increase not only our standard of customer service but the speed with which we provide customer service. Nowadays customers don’t want to wait because they can get fast, friendly, courteous customer service from our competition — other destinations.4. The cost of running a hotel or tourism business in Bermuda is too high. Hotels make less profit in Bermuda than elsewhere. It’s the nature of the formula here. Why else have so many hotels closed (40-plus) over the past 30 years? Because it is easier, cheaper and more immediately profitable to convert that real estate into condominiums, residential units etc, thereby reducing the labour cost and the daily operational cost, as well as the hassles you have to address with staff, unions, Immigration, etc. It would be different if companies were making lots of money. If you’re making a lot of profit, you can justify the hassles but if you’re barely breaking even, making a small return on investment or, much worse, making a loss, why bother? Having a hotel in Bermuda is perceived as a cool thing to do until the losses or lack of product add up. We need to create the conditions for hotels to make more money.5. We need more hotels and we need to see investment in Bermuda’s tourism product. When investors are developing hotels in a particular destination, that generates excitement and a buzz about that destination which causes visitors to travel there and other investors to do so as well, so that they can see what all the buzz is about and then of course there is increased interest in investing in that spot as well.6. The messages being sent to the homosexual community by our traditionally homophobic attitude prevents this audience from visiting Bermuda. These people in most cases are well travelled but they don’t want to take a vacation to a destination that is not accepting of them or their lifestyle. So this audience is not really an option for Bermuda at this time.7. We must generate more things for visitors to do, especially night time entertainment options, which are sorely lacking.8. Many Bermudians have turned their noses down at jobs in the tourism industry over the past 30 years. So we now have many work permit holders in posts at all levels. It will take time to train up enough Bermudians to take some of the posts currently held by work permit holders. You can’t just pick up a person off the street because they’re unemployed and Bermudian and slot them into a job they didn’t want a year ago and expect them to deliver the standard of competence that has been demonstrated by a person who loves the industry, has many years of experience in that business, studied hospitality and tourism, wants to be in this business and is performing well. Sorry, but that’s just not a smart business decision.9. We have to develop a love for tourism again, in large numbers, in all Bermuda residents, which will carry over into how we treat our visitors.10. We have to get all local residents to understand that no matter where they go to work and who pays their salary, because we all work and live in Bermuda, we all work for Bermuda’s tourism industry. The day we all get that is the day we will start to rebuild our tourism industry into a leading edge tourism destination that growing numbers of persons will visit.These ten problems are just a few of the reasons our tourism business is struggling and why people are blogging. Fix the problems and the bloggers will go away and blog about something else, because we would have essentially addressed their concerns and rebuilt our tourism industry.Peace………..DJLT.