There are real reasons for confidence that Bermuda?s tourism industry is in recovery, a top hotelier said yesterday.

But Bermuda Hotel Association president Mike Winfield warned that action must be taken to curb threats to this recovery such as spiralling crime rates and negative attitudes towards the industry in general.

In a wide-ranging speech to Hamilton Rotarians, Mr. Winfield looked at some of the problems which came to plague the tourism industry in the 1980s ? including deteriorating product, labour strife, the rise of international business ? and how these issues altered the landscape of tourism in Bermuda.

But he said with a recovery on the horizon, now is the time for the community to seek long-term solutions to one of the Island?s key industries and that everyone who lives in Bermuda must recognise that they are dependent on the industry.

?We are not involved in an impossible dilemma, there are real solutions offering real potential,? he said. ?The interest at Tucker?s Point, Lantana and by Four Seasons at the East End and the enormous investment by our existing hotels suggests that investors are seeing the potential of return. I thus now define Bermuda?s Tourism industry as being in recovery.?

Mr. Winfield laid out 19 suggestions, however, for improving Bermuda?s tourism product including the crucial need to tackle crime.

?Crime is one of the greatest threats to our viability as a tourism industry,? he said. ?We return to our houses, lock our doors and pretend it does not affect us. It does and we cannot accept the growing spectre of violence. It has already gone too far, drastic and determined action is needed, now.?

While acknowledging the reality of politics, the former United Bermuda Party Government Senate Leader said the constant use of tourism as a political football is counterproductive to finding real industry solutions.

?Our current system of Government means that the decisions of any tourism campaign, the responsibility and accountability for those decisions rests with the Minister,? he said.

?All political sides have delighted in making tourism a political issue. A new Minister comes in wanting to put his own personal stamp on the direction in which Bermuda is going.

?Suddenly it is ?all stop? and we go in another direction. Politics in an insatiable master, it demands the Opposition are finding ways to disturb the credibility of Government and if, Tourism is not experiencing an immediate recovery, then it is seen as fair game.

?Having been involved in the political process for many years, I understand the political realities, however, as a tourism professional I submit that it is this very process that is standing in the way of finding the fix we need.?

Mr. Winfield, who is also co-chairman of the Bermuda Alliance for Tourism and president of Cambridge Beaches, called on the community to put together a team effort to help the industry recovery.

?The public negativity has to stop,? he urged. ?Get involved and engaged and become part of the solution and stop being part of the problem.?

Those tourists that can afford Bermuda expect top-notch service, he said, and too often Bermuda is still coming up short.

?It?s really tough to say to a guest, perhaps paying in excess of $500 a day, that you are very sorry the telephone service doesn?t work but the repair company has committed to repair the problem, three weeks from Monday,? Mr. Winfield said.

?I do not mean to pick out the telephone service, the same model applies to almost every challenge we face.?

Bermuda also has real transport issues to address which include moving tourists around while they are in Bermuda and the omnipresent airline issue.

?We need a genuine, open and all partners review of our transportation system,? he said. ?We have to do what it takes to guarantee that visitors can get where they want, when they want ... we need to get beyond our convenience to the convenience of our visitors.?

A redesign of Hamilton is also a must, he said: ?It is nonsense for us to have so much of our most valuable, tourism-related real estate tied up by containers.?

While admitting, that as a hotelier, he has a bias on the issue of cruise ships, Mr. Winfield said the ships do raise problems which must be addressed.

?They are floating hotels, totally free of the internal cost factors, free of Government regulation and with no long-term accountability or loyalty to Bermuda,? he said. ?They can simply weigh anchor and move.?

Mr. Winfield suggests most tourists on the cruise ships cannot truly afford Bermuda and that Bermuda must look at how many cruise visitors it can handle on any given day because season caps are somewhat meaningless and their numbers do affect the quality of service experienced by hotel guests.

?Once we establish what numbers, cruise and hotel, our facilities can comfortably handle, with no deterioration of service to anyone, than that is the maximum which can be allowed,? he said.

Tapping into the European travel market ? a market larger than the US market ? was also on his list of solutions, and to do so may require breaking the BA monopoly on flights to and from Europe. ?Today, less than 20 percent of BA?s load factor is seen to be leisure business,? he said.