tourism? Why should we rebuild the industry? Tourism is responsible for the fact that we enjoy such an extraordinary lifestyle. It was the income from visitors which allowed Bermuda to build the business institutions to create the international business sector.

Income from tourism is the reason so many of our children are abroad in schools and universities. It is estimated that it takes some 20 visitors a year to pay one student's school fees.

Income from tourism pays for the fact that Bermudians are the most travelled people in the world. We have to use the proceeds from three visitors to pay for an average trip.

The money visitors spend in Bermuda allows Bermudians to shop abroad. It is impossible to tell how many visitors it takes to pay for overseas shopping because no one knows what the shopping expenses are, given undeclared goods and other factors.

These are just examples of how tourism contributes to everyone's income in Bermuda and how Bermudians spend the visitor dollars. There appear to be people, even some Bermudians in the international company sector, who think they need not be concerned about visitors because they do not work in the tourism industry. Yet the dollars from visitors circulate in every area of this economy.

We must not make the mistake of thinking that any Bermudian can afford to offend visitors. Too often we take visitors for granted and too often we give them the impression that they are tolerated but not made welcome. People who are spending on an expensive vacation, and Bermuda is expensive, need to be comfortable and welcome.

There is no doubt of the value to us of international companies but they employ the better prepared Bermudians who are qualified for company work.

Generally the pay is good and the working conditions and benefits are excellent. But international companies cannot employ all Bermudians.

The tourism industry employs a larger share of Bermudians at all kinds of levels and it employs the Bermudians who are not employable by companies, Bermudian or international. If tourism continues to decline because we treat visitors carelessly, those Bermudians who have been accustomed to a good living without a great deal of training, are going to be the have nots of Bermuda.

If we do not protect tourism as a major employer of Bermudians we could find ourselves with a badly split employment sector. We will then have some Bermudians doing well in international companies and living well and some Bermudians working in tourism who are increasingly underemployed, less well off and with a declining standard of living.

That is why we must stop the decline in tourism. That is why we must rebuild the tourism industry. We must protect every Bermudian's income, so much of which comes from tourism, and we must protect the jobs and the standard of living of those Bermudians who are directly employed by the visitor industry.