complained.

Mr. Joseph Gauzza, who recently spent a week at Belmont Hotel and Golf Club in Warwick, wrote Tourism Minister the Hon. C.V. (Jim) Woolridge complaining he was charged $5 for each overseas telephone call, regardless of whether the call was completed.

In the letter, which was copied to The Royal Gazette , Mr. Gauzza described the charges as "a deterrent to my returning, and if in fact this practice is repeated at other hotels, a deterrent for tourism for the entire Island''.

But Mr. Adrian Constant, general manager of the Belmont, said the charges were justified. "In most hotels there is a surcharge, not just in Bermuda but throughout the world,'' Mr. Constant said.

Hotels have lost a lot of money since telephone calling cards were introduced, allowing guests to use hotel telephone equipment to place overseas calls while bypassing the hotel operator, whose wages must still be paid, Mr. Constant said.

"We have to cover our telephone operating costs,'' he said.

The fact the charges are widespread is demonstrated when budget hotel chains in the United States use the absence of telephone surcharges as a marketing tool, he said.

Mr. John Harvey, executive director of the Bermuda Hotel Association, also said surcharges of various types are widespread and he has not heard many complaints about them from guests.

However, "if the charges are considered to be exorbitant, and if indeed there are ways of reducing them, we should take a look at it,'' Mr. Harvey said.

Also in the letter, Mr. Gauzza, who is from West Nyack, New York, said the recent trip to Bermuda was his fifth, and he has always enjoyed the Island and its people.