Former Tourism Minister Wayne Furbert insists that Bermuda already has an independent Tourism Authority that goes beyond the structure that was being proposed by the United Bermuda PartyThis as Tourism Minister Shawn Crockwell, his adviser Corey Butterfield and Tourism Board Chairman David Dodwell complete an overseas trip to look at tourism authorities in other jurisdictions.The trio left Bermuda on a four-day trip last week to New York and the Bahamas, Premier Craig Cannonier told The Royal Gazette on Friday.But Government will be wasting taxpayers’ cash to develop something that looks different but is substantially the same as what is already in place, Mr Furbert argues.“When I became Minister, I put in place a Tourism Authority,” said Mr Furbert, now the Shadow Tourism Minister. “I didn’t use the word Tourism Authority, I used the word Tourism Board.”He said: “I think it’s good but what they are trying to say is going to look no different from what we have in place.”The One Bermuda Alliance pledged during the general election campaign to “rejuvenate tourism by putting professionals not politicians in charge of a results-oriented, accountable Tourism Authority.”Mr Furbert was appointed Tourism Minister in November 2011. Four months later, in March 2012, he announced that a restructured Tourism Board would be operational in April that year. He told The Royal Gazette then that the new Board would be modelled along the lines of a Tourism Authority that had been promoted by the former United Bermuda Party Government.Mr Furbert told The Royal Gazette last week that the Department of Tourism researched tourism authorities in a number of jurisdictions, including Singapore, South Africa, British Columbia, Mauritius and Aruba.A decision was made to copy “almost to a T” the Singapore model.Bermuda’s new Tourism Board was given the “final authority for promotion and marketing. The only thing they weren’t responsible for was the regulatory part,” Mr Furbert said.“In other words we didn’t feel the Board should have responsibility for regulating the hotels in terms of cleanliness and health. So the Board has the full authority and their mandate is to get the tourists here and do whatever they want. They were fully independent.”His Tourism Board was accountable to the Minister but had control of the $13 million budget for marketing, and had powers to borrow money.“On top of that we gave them a Tourism Fund — 2.5 percent of every dollar a tourist spends in a hotel goes to the Board,” he said.“They have the right to hire a CEO right now. They can hire all the staff they want and they had full access to the department to get things done, access to the advertising people, the public relations people in New York. They could even spend $5 million and bring in 1,000 people free. I gave them full autonomy. So the question is what is going to be so different (with the Government’s version)?“They can spend money on TV, newspapers, they can put it under that tree if they want. But at the end of the day they have to report to the public.”But Mr Furbert said the reconstituted Board did not seem to understand that they were indeed autonomous. He said he was working on the next phase of the transition — to bring the Department of Tourism under the Board’s purview — but that work ended when the Progressive Labour Party was booted out of office.Asked why he didn’t call the new structure a Tourism Authority, he said the word Tourism Authority was not widely accepted by the PLP at the time.Mr Furbert showed us a copy of a Draft Transition Plan for a Bermuda Tourism Authority which was prepared by Vancouver International Strategic Services, known as VISTAS, commissioned by the UBP Government but not quite completed by the time that party lost the 1998 general election to the PLP.“I don’t know what in the world David Dodwell is going to come up with that is so different,” said Mr Furbert.“David (Dodwell) should be able to give the Minister some thoughts of what he’s thinking about because they have already drafted it since 1998.”Mr Dodwell, who was appointed Chairman designate of the new Tourism Authority by the Minister earlier this month, began to champion the creation of a Tourism Authority in 1997 when he was Tourism Minister."There would still be a role of Minister in the Authority. There has to because of the taxpayer element. The Minister would be responsible for safeguarding public funds which would add an element of accountability also,” he said in 1997.He commissioned VISTAS in the summer of 1998 to provide guidelines for drafting legislation to create the new body, and to establish a transition plan which “would ensure the orderly transition of the tourism function from a government department to a Tourism Authority.The company completed the legislative guidelines by October that year, but it was only able to submit a draft transition plan by November 13, 1998 — missing an executive summary and feedback from the Government of Bermuda.The report recommended a Minister-appointed Board of Directors consisting of industry stakeholders. But day-to-day management would be left to a CEO who would be accountable to the Board for results.The new Government decided not to proceed with the project.But when Mr Furbert joined the PLP and became Tourism Minister, he set about implementing a Tourism Authority. He said he did not have access to the VISTAS plan at the time but the department staff did research internally.Premier Craig Cannonier told The Royal Gazette on Friday that Mr Crockwell, Mr Butterfield and Mr Dodwell were on a trip to New York meeting Tourism personnel “as well as exploring Tourism Authority examples that are already out there so we can leverage off of best practice.” They will also be in the Bahamas.We asked why more resources were being spent on researching tourism authorities given that the concept had been studied since 1998.“The key is that we don’t want to make any mistakes here,” he said. “The tourism leg is pretty much paralysed. We’re not doing well at all. And it’s important for this administration to get it right. We will certainly look at, and have looked at, some of the examples of research that was done before, but it was important for this new Minister to get his feet wet now, to understand exactly what it means.“What happened 14 years ago — certainly the model has changed somewhat. And we need to look at history over time what that has meant.”He added: “If we don’t invest our time in this very critical leg of our economy, I dare say we are going to continue to limp on that leg. And I want him to get that Ministry up and going. I fully support him in the direction he wants to go. So we need to invest that time and money now. He’s been charged to get it right — there’s no failing here.”