When singer Michael Jackson stayed at the Hamilton Princess in 1991, it was bellman Eddie Benjamin’s job to fool the waiting crowd.

“If he was coming around the front, I had to convince everyone that he was coming by boat,” the 60-year-old laughed. “They’d all run down to the dock. And if he was coming in by water I had to convince them he was coming around the front.

Those were an interesting few days.”

And he never even got a photograph with Mr Jackson despite opening the door for him a few times.

“He said hello, and good morning to me,” Mr Benjamin said.

This month the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club honoured Mr Benjamin, and another long-time employee Allan Trew, for 40 years of service. The two each received $400, a special commemorative pin to wear and a certificate.

Mr Trew and Mr Benjamin started in 1979 during Bermuda’s tourism heyday.

Mr Benjamin was just 20 when he joined the housekeeping department at the Hamilton Princess. He moved over to the bell desk after 1½ years, thanks to the urgings of some colleagues in that department, and is still there.

“I resisted coming over to the bell desk at first,” he said. “I didn’t think I would do well there. I was very quiet.”

But he soon found his love for sports helped him connect with guests. Now they often come back to the hotel and ask for him by name.

Mr Trew was 28 when he became assistant desk manager at the Southampton Princess.

Back then, the two hotels were sister properties, with the Southampton Princess being only five years old.

“It was mainly a convention hotel,” said Mr Trew, who has a background in accounting. “We catered to a lot of the groups that came to Bermuda with IBM being our staple group.”

Mr Trew transferred to the Hamilton Princess in 1989, then went back to the other hotel in 1996 to work as hotel manager for ten years. He returned to the Hamilton Princess in 2006. Now 69, he works, three days a week as director of community involvement at the Hamilton Princess.

In the last four decades, he and Mr Benjamin have seen a lot of changes at the Hamilton Princess.

“The staff used to feel more like family,” Mr Benjamin said. “I would come in at maybe 8am, but I wouldn’t get home until midnight. We’d knock off and go up to the staff club and play cards, table tennis or pool. That is one thing that has changed. We don’t really have a facility to mingle. When you knock off now, you go home.”

The staff club served a double function for the hotel, because it kept staff around.

“When we were at the staff club, they’d often say, we have a flight coming in, can you come back,” he said. “I’d say, okay. We had a lot of fun together.”

Mr Trew said the hotel’s relationship with the Bermuda Industrial Union has improved over the years.

“At one point it used to be very confrontational,” he said.

Mr Trew said Bermuda’s best tourism year had to be 1981.

“Then we had the General Strike that year,” he said.

The strike came in May as the hotel season was just hitting its peak. All managers remaining in the hotel during the strike had to help cover tasks left by striking staff, such as housekeeping.

“Then after a few days it was decided to close the hotel,” Mr Trew said. “All the visitors left Bermuda.”

He said Bermuda lost a lot of revenue that year leading to Bermuda’s worst tourism year, in his opinion, 1982.

“Tourism in Bermuda declined for years after that strike,” he said.

Mr Benjamin had no choice but to join the strike. His mother, Florence McIntosh, was chief house keeping steward.

“If I wanted to have somewhere to live at the end of the day, I had to join the strike,” he laughed.

But later, it took a long time for Bermuda to recover, and workers were only allowed back to their jobs gradually, due to hotels being largely empty afterwards.

“It was by seniority,” Mr Benjamin said. “Every day I would call up and they would say, not today. In the end it was about 14 days after the strike before I could go back to work.”

Mr Trew said today Bermuda is seeing evidence that tourism is on the rise again.

“We’ve seen an increase in tourist arrivals,” he said. “Of course, we have also seen a decrease in the number of beds available on the island.

“We are certainly very optimistic that the future will be good. We have had very good occupancy. Thanks to the Greens, they have certainly spent a lot of money on upgrading this hotel. Now we are starting to reap the rewards.”