continued economic success -- attract more European visitors and international companies, keep shops open after normal business hours, including Sundays, and give serious consideration to casino gambling.

Dr. Archer, who is currently preparing his next economic impact study on Bermuda's economy, said another good quarter like Bermuda had at the tail end of 1992 would confirm that the local economy was beginning to pull out of recession.

"In the world context, the big depression does seem to be ending at last,'' he told The Royal Gazette in a broad-ranging interview.

"There are signs that both the American and European economies are slowly pulling of recession, although there's still a lot of unemployment. The recovery from unemployment always lags behind the recovery from recession.

"The Bermuda economy is so linked to the US economy that we have to look at what's happening in the US before we see what's happening in Bermuda.

"The last quarter in Bermuda, ending December 31, 1992, was a good one and another one to follow that will show that we're starting to pull out of recession.

"Some sectors are lagging behind others, particularly the retail side which is not showing a big recovery yet, although this is their worst period of the year.'' On tourism, he said there has already been a "slight upturn'' on last year but added that, although there there were signs that 1993 will be better than 1992, "it will not be sufficiently better to please everyone''.

"It's only the start of the recovery,'' said Dr. Archer, who has been advising Bermuda's Government on the local economy for the last 18 years, visiting the Island about three times a year.

"I cannot see a recovery to the extent that we get back to the golden days of the 1980s because the Americans have so many alternative destinations these days. So do the Europeans, for that matter.'' He did not believe Cuba would have a major impact on Bermuda's tourism industry.

"Cuba's been closed for many years now and there would be a number of Americans wanting to visit,'' he said. "But there would be more of an impact on the Bahamas than Bermuda and, possibly, other Caribbean countries.

"Bermuda is a slightly different destination attracting a slightly different clientele to the Caribbean. It should escape major damage.'' In his capacity as a professor and a deputy to the vice chancellor (a management post) at the University of Surrey, in England, Dr. Archer spends much of his time travelling to small islands, helping them with their economies.

Over the last 12 months, he's been to Mauritius, the Seychelles, Fiji, Vanuatu, Grenada and plans to soon visit St. Lucia. One of his main interests as an economist is tourism.

Most of his working visits to Bermuda are done during vacation from his university position in Surrey.

"There's a company inside the university called Surrey Research Group,'' he said. "We take on several types of work not just tourism work. We've done a lot recently in Hungary.

"Bermuda has got a head start on many of the other countries I deal with in that it has many years of experience and background both in tourism and international company business.

"Most of the countries I visit are just starting out and lack the wealth and expertise of Bermuda. There's a very much more developed and much wealthier economy in Bermuda.

"In some countries I visit, the labour supply is very inexpensive and there is a very heavy labour input in the hotels. There's a high ratio of staff to guests and so on. You cannot afford to do that in Bermuda because of high labour costs.'' Dr. Archer believed Bermuda could tap more into the European market for tourism, although he did not appear too optimistic about attracting high-spending Japanese visitors.

"The cost of travelling here from Japan is a deterrent, as is the availability of flights,'' he said.

"The Japanese have very short holidays, only one or two weeks and nothing like the four to six weeks average in Europe. They tend to be intense travellers, wanting to see many different things when they go abroad.

"It is true that a lot of Japanese are golf addicts and they will play golf certainly twice a day on vacation. It may be that some of those Japanese could be attracted to Bermuda and would like it here.

"A lot of Japanese golf addicts go to Mauritius. Often, they combine it with a trip to South Africa. They will spend four or five days in a South African game park and then three days or a week of intensive golf in Mauritius.'' He added: "Japan is an expensive market to tap into. Unless you're going to get a lot of them it might not be cost-effective to market there.

"The European market could be expended, especially if there were flights from Frankfurt or possibly Paris.

"Europeans spend more in Bermuda than do Americans and Canadians. As with Japan, there's a problem with flights. Many people have to travel via the US to get here.

"There's also a problem that Bermuda is not seen to be any different from the Caribbean countries in Europe. There's a lot of confusion in Britain between Bermuda, the Bahamas and Barbados. A lot of people in England could not place them all on a map.

"Bermuda is also perceived to be expensive, which does not mean that it is not value for money.'' On casino gambling, he said Bermuda had to weigh the moral issue against the economic benefits.

"There's a feeling among some that casino gambling does not contribute as much to the economy as people say,'' he said. "That's true in some countries where it's not been developed in a very sensible manner, but a number of countries, like the Bahamas, benefit considerably from gambling. A lot of Government tax revenue is generated.

"For many years the Bahamas refused to allow Bahamians into casinos, even to be employed there, although they changed this employment rule in the 1980s.

"If Bermuda was thinking about gambling, they could make it legal to stop Bermudians using the casinos. They could prohibit Bermudians from being employed in them but that would take away one of the big advantages, i.e.

employment creation. You could isolate gambling to one area like Club Med or even at the US Naval Annex.

"A casino coupled with a quality nightclub and accommodation will generate a very considerable amount of revenue and would bring in a totally new, extra source of visitors.

"Some people say that you would start to attract the more undesirable type of visitor and iunternational crime. I believe the Bahamas had problems with the Mafia at one time.

"But there are ways to avoid this. In Mauritius, 51 percent of casinos are owned by the Government and a local private company owns 49 percent.'' Dr. Archer suggested changes to the retail industry to encourage visitors to spend more.

"I have always found with islands that the total amount a visitor spends is very much related to what's available to spend it on.'' He said Bermuda had plenty of things to buy, but have visitors too little time to spend.

"If you come to Hamilton after 5 p.m. everything's shut and there's nowhere to spend it. The same is true of Sundays. I've seen visitors with bulging wallets walking up and down Front Street on Sunday wondering what they can spend their money on apart form Bailey's ice cream.'' Dr. Archer praised Bermuda's two large banks for the way they have expanded overseas, saying they were "very efficient operators'' abroad.

On international companies, he said: "Some people say they take up too much land or add to traffic congestion but they provide a large number of jobs.

"I would like to see more of them not less. In particular, I would like to see a big effort made to attract more of the companies which are wondering whether to leave Hong Kong. Some of the islands in the Caribbean offer much lower registration fees than Bermuda.'' Dr. Brian Archer.