there would have been great alarm over the headline on Page Two of this newspaper yesterday, "Thieves target hotels''. We now seem to accept these acts which cause visitors never to return to Bermuda and to tell their travel agents, relatives and friends about their bad experience. There is nothing more damaging to a visitor resort than to be bad mouthed by people who have been robbed in their hotel rooms.

The Police crime prevention officer is quoted as saying that it is not unusual to have a rash of break-ins over a brief period of time. "Quite often thieves will target a series of rooms.'' We do not believe that Bermuda should accept that "quite often''. He has also said that these crimes are not the fault of hotels. It seems that visitors often leave their sliding glass doors open either for ventilation or to hear the ocean. That is quite natural for people on holiday who are inclined to be a little more careless than they might be at home, especially if they have been led to believe that Bermuda is a safe place.

But we must not fall into the trap of taking it for granted that visitors' rooms will be robbed while they sleep. There is little that is more frightening for strangers in a strange place.

We find it difficult to believe that someone could enter five rooms in the same hotel without someone raising an alarm. Probably these things are done quite quickly but the thief or thieves have to get onto the hotel property and find the rooms with open doors. That must take a little time. Is there no such thing as roving outside security? We do recognise that Bermuda's hotels are often in quite isolated locations and that they are sometimes surrounded by the sea or water of some kind with nooks and crannies among the rocks or the gardens. But it would seem that managements should recognise that fact too, especially since they are aware of the tendency of visitors to leave doors and windows open.

We cannot see that writing known hotel thieves registered letters banning them from hotel properties amounts to anything at all. If they wish to repeat offend then a letter will make no difference.

While we are certainly not in favour of frightening visitors, they do deserve protection and it must be possible to warn them that like so many other places Bermuda is not as safe as most Bermudians would like it to be and they should take sensible precautions. People are not stupid. They do not want to endanger themselves. We do not think that a message that they should behave sensibly for their own protection would alarm them unduly. Provide room safes and advise them to be sensible and put their valuables in the safe, especially if they are going to leave their doors and windows open.

It is too late to be sorry for them after a robbery has taken places. The fact is that it is rather early in the season to be having these break- ins and they are probably being carried out by only one or two people but these few people can do Bermuda a great deal of damage.