in visitors from Europe.

But Mr. Woolridge remains cautious about the European and Japanese markets which he believes will not remove the dominance of visitors from the United States.

However Shadow Tourism Minister Mr. David Allen believes that American dominance could end if the Government took Europe seriously.

And he attacked the Minister's view that attracting visitors from Europe was too expensive.

European visitors presently fly in through London on one of the three British Airways flights or via New York on American Airlines.

In the House of Assembly, Mr. Woolridge said he was actively seeking a "carrier'' to fly out of Europe to the Island. But he said: "We will never generate the number of bodies out of Europe that we get out of the United States.

"We must try to get the most possible return out of the least possible outlay.'' In terms of advertising it costs on average $29 to get some from the United States compared to $59-60 for someone from Europe, according to the Minister.

He said: "We might get more people out here if we get an airline interested but we are not going to get a deluge of people from Europe.'' Turning to Japan the Minister said that a 30 second TV commercial would cost $245,000 compared to $75,000 in the United States where the Bermuda has been advertised in prime spots during Cheers and the Superbowl.

Mr. Allen agreed that the US was the prime market with 85 percent of visitors from there, but he said that could easily be slashed to around 60 percent.

He said: "It would not be unreasonable to see European visitors increasing from five percent of the market to 10, 15 or 20 percent.'' Launching a scathing attack on the Minister's assertion that European visitors cost too much to attract, Mr. Allen said: "He did not say that the average European stays twice as long as the average American.

"If they stay twice as long they are going to pay twice as much. And they usually stay at upscale properties even coming at times for two or three weeks, compared to average American's 4.9 nights.'' He stressed that he did not want to devalue US visitors but he was just explaining how much extra could be made from Europe.