Island hoteliers have been urged to embrace not reject the new generation of cruise ships as a potential profit earner.

Tourism Minister David Allen and the Bermuda Hoteliers Association are keen for tourist accommodations to see the ships in a different light than previously.

They want hotels to hook up to the new cruise and stay vacation, which they believe will provide thousands of extra bed nights and millions of dollars in revenue.

Mr. Allen, revealed last week that the new company that would be sending a weekend cruise ship to Dockyard from next May, said in the past hotels and ships had not been the best of partners.

"There has been an adversarial relationship between the two, but we are forging a partnership, and we see here that the two will be able to work together,'' he said.

He had promised tens of thousands of extra bed nights in the cruise and stay innovation, whereby passengers will cruise for four nights and stay in an Island hotel for three with Crown Cruise Lines' Crown Dynasty .

Charter flights through Chicago and Philadelphia will bring and take vacationers to and from Bermuda.

BHA representative Michael Kaile, general manager of the Hamilton Princess, said hotels had to embrace change.

"The options are to carry on doing the same thing or try something new. More of the same is not what we need, so we have to do something new,'' he said.

Embrace cruise ship policy "The real spin off is for the hotel industry and all the related industries, there is huge value for so many people on the Island.'' He said he could understand the reluctance by some people to having a sixth cruise ship in Bermuda, but added that there was always trepidation when something new came along.

A similar scheme was successful at Mr. Kaile's former Canadian Pacific hotel in Vancouver, but he warned that it was not an instant fix in terms of numbers coming to the Island.

The early years would lay the foundation for richer, later years to follow, he said.

"I hope it is understood by the industry as being a very different approach which bodes well for the future.'' Mr. Allen has reassured the hotels that cruise and stay will feature heavily in any future cruise ship contracts.

Already Celebrity Cruises and Royal Caribbean are being lined up for a proportion of hotel guests.

And the NCL's newly stretched Norwegian Majesty will designate its extra 251 berths to cruise and stay passengers.

The Minister said he made it clear to NCL that their 1,751-berth vessel would have to give something back to the Island. "There was no way I was going to allow them to have those extra passengers, now we have an agreement with two hotels,'' he said.

And he said the contract signed by the UBP for the Song of America , which has now been replaced by the Nordic Empress , did not specify a number of cabins, but the new ship has 150 more berths.

From next year, those extra cabins will be designated for hotel guests.

New ship: Crown Cruise Lines' Crown Dynasty .