international news agency Reuters, visited Bermuda last month for a vacation and investigated Bermuda's embattled retail sector. In addition to a pair of blue cobra skin shoes, this is what she found.

HAMILTON, Bermuda (Reuters) -- My husband doesn't know it yet, but a blue cobra seduced me on Day Two of our vacation in Bermuda. Actually, it was a pair of blue cobra-skin mules with 3-inch kitten heels -- the kind of footwear that Brigitte Bardot might have worn in her 1957 box-office hit "And God Created Woman'' -- that coiled around my common sense until I caved in and bought them.

"These are hot,'' said Maritza Sequeros, who showed me the mules, or backless shoes with high curved heels, in the Calypso store on Front Street, Hamilton's answer to New York City's Fifth Avenue. "I'm going to buy a pair for myself and plan a party around the shoes!'' Although Bermuda tourism is down from its heyday of a few decades ago and the retailers in this British overseas territory are feeling the pinch, you wouldn't have known it on that Friday afternoon when the blue cobra mules worked their magic on me and a few other women in Calypso's shoe department.

Maybe the Bermuda power brokers need to tap into the seductive power of a serpent, which is something Eve learned about the hard way. After all, this island of about 62,500 people in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean looks a lot like the Garden of Eden -- albeit with more insurance. (It's one of the insurance capitals of the world).

Inside Calypso, Sequeros let me browse. She walked away for a few minutes to let me bond with the shoes.

One more look in the mirror and it was "sold'' -- for $99.95 -- a pair of shoes definitely not made for walking.

Bermuda shops "It's classic, very Fifties,'' Sequeros said. "It's the `in' thing right now.

Last year, it was animal prints everywhere. This year, it's snakeskin.'' The shoes were made in Italy exclusively for Calypso, said Sequeros, group sales manager for Hornburg Calypso Ltd., a 50-year-old company whose Calypso stores also sell women's clothing, handbags, accessories and ceramic plates made in Italy.

From the air, Bermuda looks a lot like an emerald-bedecked fishhook trimmed with pink and white diamonds in a turquoise sea. Situated atop a reef, Bermuda covers about 21 square miles.

As Minister of Tourism David Allen is fond of saying, Bermuda is the closest resort island by air to New York City. (Air fare averages between $300 and $400 round-trip.) "Bermuda is refocusing as a shopping destination,'' Allen told Reuters in an interview. "Government, over the years, has reduced duty on natural-fibre clothing. Jewellery and watches have become better buys.

"One of the best-kept secrets about Bermuda,'' he added, "is the after-Christmas shopping. It's like going to Harrod's for the sales in London.

The sales in January are incredible -- 50 percent, 75 percent off and more -- on the finest English and Scottish woollens, and cashmere, and on crystal.'' For an American tourist, shopping in Bermuda is easy. The US dollar and the Bermudian dollar are on a par. All major credit cards are accepted. Still, Bermuda is a pricey place.

"We're a high-end destination,'' Allen said. "Average daily rates in hotels are around $300 a day, up to about $500.'' Robert Stewart, the author of "Bermuda: An Economy Which Works,'' said, "I would have to say the heyday of Bermuda tourism stretched from about the 1950 and the 1960s, before jet travel became commonplace, up to about 1980.'' From the late 1980s onward, the flow of North American visitors, the mainstays of Bermuda's tourism industry, began to slow. Many tourists wanted more adventure than lolling around on the beach. Bermuda's tourist industry was slow to adapt to changing tastes, Stewart said.

The Bermuda Jazz Festival in mid-September attracted about 1,500 overseas visitors, up 25 percent from 1999, Allen said.

Still, overall tourism is down, Allen acknowledged, noting that "air visitors are running about six percent behind last year, when we had 354,000 air visitors. Cruise visitors are up about ten percent. In 1999, we had 190,000 cruise visitors.'' In 1994, the total number of visitors to Bermuda was just under 590,000, according to Stewart's book.

A new package of government incentives for the hotel industry will spur construction of new hotels and renovation of others, Allen said.

To improve the tourist's shopping experience in Bermuda, a "gold seal'' programme similar to Singapore's is being developed to train and certify sales associates, said Ian Smith, chairman of the Visitor Retail Division of the Bermuda Chamber of Commerce.

"We may call it the Golden Palmetto,'' Smith said in an interview in his office in Hamilton above the Astwood Dickinson jewellery store, where he is the general manager. "We're working with the National Training Board and Bermuda College on a retail diploma.'' Astwood Dickinson Co. Ltd., the exclusive agents for Colombian Emeralds International in the Caribbean and the representative of Tiffany & Co. in Bermuda, has won prestigious awards for the training and development of the employees in the Front Street store under Smith's management.

The merchandise includes such mouth-watering items as a necklace with a 14-carat emerald pendant and gold jewellery made in the shop above the store.

Breitling, Cartier and other fine watches sell for about 20 percent less than US prices.

"I sell jewellery at duty-free Caribbean prices, yet I can't advertise that,'' Smith said. "I pay 7.5 percent duty'' to the Bermuda Government "on jewellery and ten percent on watches.'' Improving service, price and choice is crucial to the Bermuda retailer's ability to grow market share, and perhaps survive, Smith said.

W. Roger Davidson, president of H.A. & E. Smith, one of Bermuda's oldest and most prestigious department stores, said retailers are facing a big challenge in today's tight labour market. He noted that "with the growth of the financial services industry, we're competing for the same people''.

Jo Ann Davis, general counsel of Household Insurance Group Inc. of Bridgewater, New Jersey, and her husband, an accountant, browsed in all the posh department stores and jewellery stores along Front Street in Hamilton.

"I've been to several islands, Nassau, Barbados, Jamaica,'' Davis said. "I was a little bit disappointed. I had hoped to find some interesting costume jewellery. I thought the prices were high, too.'' Audrey Farrell, a retired AT&T employee who lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, found herself in shopping heaven during her first trip to Bermuda this month.

She travelled there on rhe Crown Dynasty , a cruise ship.

"I was looking for bargains, things I could get cheaper there than I could here,'' Farrell said in a telephone interview after she returned from Bermuda.

"I did buy a lot of Waterford. It was 20 percent off'' US prices. "If you buy $400 (worth), you save on tax and they pay the shipping.'' She shopped at Trimingham's, another of Bermuda's historic department stores, noting "there was a nice Irish girl there from Waterford ... very helpful.'' Farrell bought the Waterford "Millennium'' collection champagne flutes and wine glasses, priced at $95.25 a pair at Trimingham's, A.S. Cooper & Sons Ltd.

and Smith's. The average US price is $115 for a pair of those glasses.

"Perfume, of course, was cheaper, about $20 cheaper than here,'' Farrell added. "I bought Boucheron, a refill for a container, for about $60. I think I pay $80 here.'' Bermuda's three major department stores -- Trimingham's, Smith's and Cooper's -- will ship crystal, china or collectibles to the buyer's home at no charge if the size of the order meets a minimum amount. Much of the giftware bought by younger American tourists "is a present for mother,'' said Carol Phillips, the giftware buyer at A.S. Cooper & Sons Ltd.

The Shopping column runs every week. Questions and information related to shopping, or comments on this column, can be sent to jan.paschal yreuters.com To die for: The blue cobra skin shoes that Reuters could not resist.