they received it last week with the announcement that major hotels had suffered a $5.6 million loss in 1996. The year end is September 30.

The alarming thing is that the loss comes on top of a $5.8 million profit in 1994, which led some people to believe tourism was on its way back, and only a small loss in 1995. The 1996 loss comes despite efforts to revive tourism and despite the "Let Yourself Go'' campaign.

During the last nine years, the cumulative losses of the eight major hotels involved in total a staggering $47.5 million. There are people in Bermuda who believe that the hotels lie about their profit and loss but these are properly audited figures.

It is not unusual to hear people say that Bermuda's hotels are not up to the standard of the prices they charge and that the hotels need "sprucing up''.

In the last few years there have been some major efforts to upgrade the hotels. The Elbow Beach and Sonesta Beach are examples. However, the 1996 loss comes on top of the two years during which the hotels spent $43.6 million on new furnishings, plant and equipment.

That is bound to make anyone wonder what it takes to get visitors back to Bermuda and what they will accept as a fair price. When you spend a long time, as Bermuda did, pricing yourself out of the market, it takes a long time to get rid of the reputation for being "very expensive''. Everyone you talk to overseas who knows anything about Bermuda always says: "It's very expensive.'' That reputation has to be lived down by a period of value for money and it will not be easy to live down now that it is well established.

We think it can only be lived down by improving the facilities and the service while doing our best to hold prices. We have a quality image of relaxation, beauty and safety which we must maintain. Radical attempts to change a well earned image for quality and dignity should not be undertaken because they are not believable even to those who have only heard of Bermuda and radical changes like "Sin Island'' serve only to confuse the market.

There are other alarming figures. Occupancy levels for 1996 stood at only 58.8 percent. No hotel can survive long on that. Room nights sold dropped by close to 40,000 nights from 1994 to 1996 from 580,602 nights to 541,994 nights. In the meantime, operating costs and wage costs are increasing.

To be fair, the problem is not all with hotel quality and hotel prices.

Visitors often complain about the 15 percent automatic gratuity, the cost of meals in restaurants outside the hotels, erratic and expensive transportation, and taxes added to their bills.

Large improvements in visitor figures will not happen overnight. It will take a concerted effort on the part of the Ministry of Tourism, Government, the hotel workers and all the people of Bermuda. The average Bermudian can make a major contribution by being sure to be pleasant and helpful to visitors.