the Island's most successful market in recent years kicks off today in London.

Bermuda, which was formerly represented at the World Travel Market, held in London each October, is now is the central focus of a tourism industry marketplace held in the UK's capital each February.

This year some 30 local exhibitors, Tourism Minister David Allen and other high-ranking Tourism Department personnel have descended upon London's Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge for the Bermuda Marketplace.

Amongst the exhibitors are representatives from hotels, airlines, destination management companies and the Chamber of Commerce.

The aim of the event is to boost arrivals to the Island from the UK. It was created by Communications in Business, the UK firm which handles the Island's tourism marketing in the UK and Europe.

Director of Tourism in Europe, Ian Parker, yesterday explained the idea behind the Bermuda Marketplace.

"Bermuda used to be at the World Travel Market....which was very big and expensive,'' he said.

"That setting was useful to destinations being mass marketed out of the UK but this was not the case for Bermuda. The Island did not have a lot of money so its efforts had to be as cost effective as possible.

"We were rethinking our strategy in terms of focussing it. The tour operators who were sending us business were not mass marketing, they were specialist tour operators and niche tour operators.

"Bermuda was an aspirational destination, not a mass market.'' Mr. Parker said that instead of trying to convince all of the more than 7,000 travel agents in the UK to selling the Island, CIB decided to create a limited number of specialist travel agents with an in-depth knowledge of the Island who were located around the country in areas where potential Bermuda visitors lived.

"In certain parts of the country we knew there was no Bermuda market so there was no urgent need to have travel agents there,'' said Mr. Parker.

Under the new scheme, Bermuda now has 30 tour operators and 125 specialist travel agents working for it. CIB then suggested that the Island pull out of World Travel Marketplace where it was getting lost in the crowd.

The decision was then made for Bermuda to have its own marketplace which would allow tour operators and travel agents to focus entirely on the Island for two days instead of being inundated with hundreds of other destinations.

"It is not a big show, it is not a consumer show,'' stressed Mr. Parker.

"For our marketplace we can focus our activity directly on our tour operators, our travel agents and target those people we want on board.'' Mr. Parker revealed that CIB hoped to get a total of 200 specialist agents working for it in key areas around the country and establish that as the limit.

The organisation's plans appear to be having some effect going by recent tourism figures.

Visitors from the UK represent about 20 percent of the Island's total number of bednights while accounting for about ten percent of its visitors.

And in 1998 arrivals from the UK leapt a massive 26 percent over 1997.