Government's latest tourism advertising campaign "hindered more than it helped'', an Opposition Party MP has claimed.

Responding to Friday's Throne Speech, Shadow Tourism Minister David Allen said: "There were a lot of admissions about what needed to be done'', but "there was no admission of the Government's failure''.

"Let Yourself Go has fallen flat on its face,'' he charged. "A lot of money has been pumped into advertising and it is clear that it has been squandered.'' And the television advertisement featuring the "famous wind sock and the Sin Island signpost'' had "fallen way short of the mark'', he added.

Mr. Allen said the campaign "did more to confuse Bermuda's marketing image than beef it up''.

He said there was "`more verbiage about a marketing strategy'' in yesterday's speech.

"There has been a lot of talk and plans on paper which have been a surrogate to real action,'' he said. "There was no indication that they planned to rework their marketing strategy.

"There was some reference to raising the standards of our service levels and no-one would argue against that -- the PLP has advocated that for years. It's like mom and apple pie.

"Frankly, I'm disappointed that many of the things the PLP has suggested over the years have not been acted on.'' When the PLP was elected, he said, one of its goals would be to reduce the duties on what visitors bought when in Bermuda.

"We want to make Bermuda an attractive shopping destination again.'' He said Bermuda also had to become more competitive in the price wars.

There had been numerous tax increases which had impacted on the industry, he said.

However he added: "We would like to see more tax incentives.

"We have advocated a seasonal (approach) -- lowering certain taxes in the slower periods of the year to create an incentive to our off season visitors.

"It is a rule of economics. Give stimuli to increase volume. It is better to have more people come to Bermuda with less of a tax burden then to have less people come with more taxes on them and the service providers.'' Mr. Allen said the PLP had also called for a "full scale division'' within the Tourism Ministry -- both in its local and overseas offices -- to deal with international business and the opportunities it presented.

Just recently, he continued, there were major resort hotels on the Island which had very low occupancies -- some had no more than 100 or so guests "knocking about''.

"That's a fact -- I investigated it myself -- but this is the period when we used to get our group business,'' said Mr. Allen.

Then there were also lay offs in some hotels during August, he continued, which was normally a month of high occupancy for the Island.

"This is a great concern,'' he said.

Looking ahead Mr. Allen said he would be highlighting these and "many other areas'' in his response to the Throne Speech and he would "elaborate on them in detail'' then.