The Bermuda Tourism Authority aims to target a new generation of visitors, starting with collegiate and national sporting teams.

Pat Phillip-Fairn, the BTA’s chief product and experiences development officer, today spoke of plans to expand and promote Bermuda’s unique ability to offer a spring training ground in order to attract sports people during traditional shoulder seasons.

They anticipate seeing more golf, swimming, rugby and lacrosse teams using the facilities that are available on the Island, Ms Phillip-Fairn told a press conference.

“Sports tourism in general is a big area for us. We have established a partnership with the National Sports Centre,” she said.

“As we said before spring break for Bermuda is not Cancun — we can’t deliver on that and so we have developed experiences that are targeting sports teams to come here for spring training and that is already delivering results.

“There is a lot of interest and already some bookings ahead of the January through March period of next year.”

The BTA has come in for criticism this week after new figures showed year-on-year tourism arrivals were down 1 per cent for the second quarter of 2015.

Giving a presentation of some of the BTA’s ongoing marketing efforts yesterday, Ms Phillip-Fairn said it has supported more than 50 different experiences through its new product and experiences application process.

“Some of those experiences have been targeting the millennials, some targeting the adventure seekers and they have really been expanding a great scope of what Bermuda can offer,” she said.

New activities include hydrobikes at Daniel’s Head and haunted history and fort tours in St George’s.

Ms Phillip-Fairn said that by repurposing existing experiences like Marathon Weekend and Bermuda Heroes Weekend, they can become key occasions in Bermuda, generating hundreds of visitors.