to be balanced against the continuing need for Bermuda to maintain a tourism industry which is viable.

Increasingly, the mainstream cruise lines like Carnival and Norwegian Cruise Lines are building bigger and more luxurious ships for their major Caribbean routes. This makes sense for them; with demand for cruises growing, the lines can pack more passengers into each voyage if they build bigger vessels.

For Bermuda, this presents a challenge because of the Island's location, size and the difficulties of entering the main harbours.

Bermuda simply cannot accommodate the "mega ships'' which will accommodate 2,500 or more passengers. These are not the ships the Island could attract.

But Bermuda may have to consider accommodating the smaller vessels of the new generation of ships.

These will still be larger than the Island's existing vessels and it may be that ships of the size serving Bermuda will not exist in the next decade.

Nonetheless, dredging or widening the channels and passages into St. George's and Hamilton may well be necessary, but they would irrevocably change the shape and nature of the harbours and needs to be considered with care and full environmental impact studies need to be conducted before taking this step.

Because ships calling on the Island stay more than one day -- unlike the Caribbean callers, who visit an island a day -- the carrying capacity of the Island also has to be taken into account.

While many businessmen and merchants would doubtless welcome the new business, the community has to decide if it is completely desirable. Bermuda also needs to decide once and for all whether cruise visitors spend more or less than "regular'' visitors once accommodation costs have been taken out. The argument over whether the cruise business takes away hotel guests or if, in fact, the two are different animals also needs to be settled. This year will be the first year of the cruise and stay concept and should give some indication of which is the case.

In the event that Bermuda decides it wants to stay in the cruise business, it will have to accept larger ships and that it may be that some of the proposals for pushing out the docks will open up the waterfront to the benefit of all.

If, on the other hand, the environmental damage from the dredging and adjustments to the passages is too great, then Bermuda may have to decide to reduce the size of the cruise ship sector.