Tourism Authority chairman David Dodwell has issued a rallying cry to the nation — everyone has to get involved if the industry is to undergo a revival.

And the hotelier also challenged the idea that Bermudians “are the friendliest people in the world”, insisting that the Island no longer owned that reputation exclusively.

In a frank and often hard-hitting presentation to Hamilton Rotarians yesterday, Mr Dodwell outlined where Bermuda had gone wrong with the industry in the past,and how a new, independent authority would put it right. He said the new Tourism Authority — which will fully replace the Department of Tourism in the next four months — had been created “because the old way failed — it did not work”.

He listed a number of areas, including product and marketing, in which the industry was underperforming — and said the “entrepreneurial-driven” authority was in a far better position than Government to bring about change.

“We need 61,000 people working in tourism and if we can get us all on the same reasonable step, and all of us wake up every single morning and say our hearts, and our minds, and our wallets, are in Tourism then we’ll get it,” he said.

“I will submit to you that, that doesn’t happen today. At the end of the day all of us have to get into the business — we have to switch on 61,000 people.

“It has been said that we’re the friendliest people in the world. We are friendly, but there are many other jurisdictions that can claim that.

“I’m not sure how you can measure or prove that statement, but Bermuda is not the only place that owns it, and I think we really need to own it, and really go after it.

“We’ve got to go back to those 1950s and 1960s when we did so well.

“There were competitors, but what we did after that period, we used to look over our shoulders at the competition and say ‘they’re not going to catch us up’.

“Well, they did, and they overtook us and we now look at the back end of the competition.”

Mr Dodwell, who owns the award-winning Reefs resort in Southampton, and another hotel in Nevis, pointed out that Bermuda was competing with the rest of the world to attract visitors.

“We’re not just competing with islands to the south of us,” he said

“We have forgotten how to compete with others jurisdictions, with other hotels, with other restaurants, and one of the things about competition is you have to improve and you have to recognise that your competing.

“It’s a mindset and a culture that as business people — which is what the Tourism Authority will be — we have to recognise that we have learn all over again how to compete.”

Mr Dodwell said that, in order to bring in more visitors and catch up with the competition, a range of changes had to be made.

“Everybody says when they come to Bermuda ‘what a wonderful place it is but not everything works perfectly’ and I think we all know that.

“I think if we stop and look in the mirror we all recognise that the customer is not leaving completely satisfied all of the time,” he said.

“We have the foundations — the bones of Bermuda are phenomenal. What we need to do is enhance this product, improve it where it needs to be improved and then go out and market it.

“So the physical product certainly needs change and our services need to be improved and our experiences need to be upgraded.”

Mr Dodwell also criticised previous marketing campaigns, saying that the Island was not “brand effective”.

“When people come here they love it, but when you meet people abroad or ask them about Bermuda they say ‘Bermuda — I haven’t been there in a long time’, or the most common line that we hear is ‘Bermuda — that’s where my parents used to go’.

“So we’re not brand effective. We’re not getting out to the market place and competing with other destinations. People say ‘Bermuda — where is it, what does it stand for’, and when you hear that, you know that something is wrong.”

Mr Dodwell gave his support to the opening up of casinos, claiming they could be “a magnate and an anchor” that would increase the Island’s appeal to visitors.

He said the Tourism Authority “will be a vibrant and entrepreneurial enterprise that has been established to act as the singular voice that restores and evolves Bermuda Tourism back into a world class destination”.

He said that four key management positions would be “private sector people coming in to manage a private organisation” rather than civil servants who had previously run the industry.

“They will be held accountable. If it doesn’t work, that person will move on.”

He said Authority managers will be “willing to change and roll the dice and take some risk”.

“And that is what a private enterprise will do,” he noted.

“A Government department can’t do that. A Government department has got to be ‘steady eddie, steady as it goes’.

“But, a new enterprise has the need and opportunity to take risk — that’s what business does.

“If we operate the same way we did before we’re going to get the same results. It needs all of us.

“The fixes are not quick and they are not easy. But if we put our heads down and focus, we can do it and if we learn to do things differently we will get different results.”