Bermuda Casts Tourist Net But Catch Is Less Than Hoped

What’s 22 miles long, has an average temperature of 70 degrees and is home to eight golf courses?

Bermuda, of course.

The British colony, a collection of 150 islands in the Atlantic Ocean about 650 miles east of North Carolina, has two mainstays: tourism and international business.

“Last year our gross domestic product was $1.6 billion,” C.V. Jim Woolridge, minister of tourism for Bermuda, said. “Approximately 64% of that was from tourism, and the rest was from the international companies which are based in Bermuda.”

In 1994, Bermuda was visited by nearly 600,000 people, of whom five of every six were from the United States.

“One of the advantages for Americans coming to Bermuda is that its dollar is on a par and there’s no confusion with the currency,” Woolridge said. “It’s a natural relationship because of our relative closeness and, of course, because we all speak the same language.”

Woolridge hopes that, given the weakness of the dollar, more Americans will choose Bermuda over Europe in their travels this summer. So far, they haven’t.

“Our early predictions were bright, but at the moment we’re experiencing a little softness,” Woolridge said. “In April and May we saw a definite softening and at the moment we’re slightly off, but we hope to recover that as the season goes on.”

“The umbilical cord to the economy of Bermuda is really the U.S.,” said Gary Phillips, director of tourism for Bermuda. “Whatever happens in the U.S., be it of a political or economic nature, is going to have a major impact on how we survive.”

Phillips said the rise and fall of U.S. consumer confidence determines the extent to which Bermuda is going to be able to generate business.

Americans’ confidence in their ailing economy showed signs of improvement in early June, suggesting consumers may be ready to start spending again.

The University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment index for June rose to 92.3 from 89.8 in May, analysts familiar with the report said. The index of current economic conditions rose to 105.4 from last month’s final reading of 105.

Consumer spending represents about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. If rising consumer confidence is followed by a boost in purchasing, the economy might rebound from the current slowdown.

Nevertheless, signs of weakness dominate the landscape. A slump in retail sales continued for a sixth month in May as sales rose just 0.2%. That’s lower than most analysts anticipated. And the Michigan report is by no means a definitive gauge of whether consumers will step up their spending later in the year.

Woolridge is hoping the airlines might help to spur some travelers’ interests in Bermuda. Some of the 13 flights a day out of North America offer fares as low as $124 one way from New York to Bermuda.

“The low fares compelled us to put together a new advertising gimmick/sales promotion which says, ‘Pinch me--I must be dreaming,’ ” Woolridge said. “That’s a new campaign apart from our Bermuda Shorts one, which has been very successful.”

The country’s Bermuda Shorts promotion, an award winner at the Effie Awards ceremony held earlier this month, was the only foreign destination campaign honored.

“We just revised the campaign slightly and we think we have an excellent equity in our Bermuda Shorts campaign,” Phillips said. “We’re going to stick with it this year.”

Woolridge said Bermuda enjoys one of the highest repeat rates for tourists in the world, at about 46%.

“We’re also seeing more companies registering in Bermuda, both U.S. and International companies,” Woolridge said. “That tells us we must be doing something right.”