Not unusual.It’s common practice.

It’s laziness on the part of the BTA though.

Attention of Bill Hanbury and team: “Bermuda and many places around.”
Sent from the desk of Mr. Raymond J. C. Ray
If you have a spare moment, please view my site.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNGpywSs5rI-pvhYB7__Jpg/videos

Horse shoe bay head count today, 4 lol

Bermuda has some very welcoming people, but sheesh, it also has some of the biggest whingers on the face of the planet.

If you have nothing good to say, then stay silent. Please.

What a load of s*&^.

You spent all that time putting that up here?
Rum all around.

I’ll definitely be watching.

@Bermyman: I am not going to assume that people know where all the far away places are around the globe. But we have the facts to KNOW that many people do not know where Bermuda is 90 minutes away from East Coasters alone. Needs another rethink to bring up the awareness that’s all. Also that was a question I asked about pricing ourselves into the market not a comment. Understand the difference. I guess you missed the question mark. I also qualified myself that I was not an economist. Just throwing ideas out there. Relax and stop personally attacking. This is a discussion about how to improve tourism. Also it’s that type of elitism thinking that is kicking us in the behind and this needs to stop.

If I am in New York and in a store, or café somewhere inevitably the conversation comes up that I am from Bermuda. I would immediately ask them if they know where that is? The majority think in the Caribbean and their jaws drop when I say it’s only a 90 minute flight time with a good tail wind. “Really?” they would say. “I didn’t know that!” Something is wrong here. That’s why I am wondering WHO is the BTA targeting? (and past Tourism Depts, let’s be fair). Because the friendly waitress who served me in the NY café who says, “Wow I would love to come and visit someday” after knowing it’s only a 90 minute flight time had to hear it from me first? I venture it’s because that is not the market being targeted (because they are not wealthy enough) and perhaps they should be so because they are just as interested to visit ‘someday’. Somehow we need to help them quicken up the timeframe to start saving for a Bermuda vacation. Our personal ambassadorship can only go so far.

How do we price ourselves back into the market? How naive this comment is. Firstly you would need to stop buying power from BELCO at some of the highest rates in the world, secondly you would have to not employing Bermudians at some of the highest costs in the world and of course you would have to not supply food bought by local distributors, again at some of the highest costs in the world. Operating expenses on this Island are obscene, throw in Unions and a seasonal subtropical climate. We would have to compete with the likes of Mexico and Costa Rica. Sure we can probably get there is we allow our national debt to spiral out of control so that the major resort developers can pay third world wages.

You need quality not quantity, that is the only way. Bermuda is just too plain expensive and there ain’t no changing that anytime soon.

Its like saying ‘give me your hard earned money and I’ll give you this special invisible money back’.

Religion is the biggest con there ever was. Shame more people haven’t figured that out yet.

Suffice to say tell me where you are living and then I can tell you where these “people” are…

Cheers,

Don’t leave the light on…might hurt your eyes.

This is not the end all for BTA’s marketing. It is not their only focus, but they are currently embracing and responding to an article bringing attention to Bermuda – doing what most Bermudians have done as their island pastime – cliff jumping!

Why don’t you set up a meeting with the BTA to discuss your ideas? In the mean time – let them have a good time and represent the island in what fun activities we love to do!

I am busy planning a budget US roadtrip staying at what most would consider ‘blue collar’ type destinations. 3 & 4 months out from dates needed & accomodations & full or near full.

What is going on? Where are all of these people with no jobs & no money to spend on vacations?

Also regarding the stats per ivory tower. I have always felt, as do many others that Bermuda is fully approaching the awful realization of pricing itself COMPLETELY out of the tourism market. I think we are 99% there to be frank. We are left with soliciting only the ’1%’ so to speak which are not great odds at all eg. cruise ships. Yes I am being simplistic but much reliance is on this particular industry now who are known to not spend much. Yet we try to spin around the same formula of trying to attract the wealthy only. That could mean trying to solicit the same persons coming here year after year which could get boring even if they are rich. The fact that Americans still do not know our existence despite being 90 minutes away from one of the most popular airports on earth admitted by the BTA (Glenn Jones said this on Sherri J’s show)is still astonishing.

We need to change our target market away from the wealthy and be ingenious in creating a price formula for the current middle class. How do we price ourselves back into the market? Very tough. I am not an economist but some research has to be done. Is the BTA liaising with the Economic section of the Ministry of Finance to talk strategy or are we just blindly creating expensive ads? You see I don’t think the answer is how slick or better the ads are in an ad campaign. I don’t need an expensive 30 second ad to know if I wish to visit Beijing or Melbourne. Most likely I will forget about it and I will do my own research on countries I wish to visit. Our advertising has to be a lot smarter than…cliff diving. The bottom line which we don’t seem to want to face is that we do not nor have we developed a proper hedge against Bermuda’s sole reliance on an elitist market during a recession. I wish it could be something as simple as everyone bringing down the costs together simultaneously by 20%. Banks, Retail, Hotels, all Salaries, Fuel, etc etc. for a year say and see how that pans out in being more competitive to our tourism market. Is it possible? To give ourselves a price break? Because our competitors down south are enjoying higher numbers without a dominance and reliance of an elite market to support them unlike us. I was there recently and their comprehensive all in one vacation packages are mind blowing. Bermuda simply cannot compete with that. No question, we need more out of the box thinking to be done like yesterday.

Anyway done the cliff at “House” many times.

Always fun

Describing us as a subtropical archipelago of 181 volcanic islands is going to conjure up quite a different picture in one’s mind than what they will actually see in real life.

And I don’t believe that if you strung all the beaches together , public and private , they’d even amount to 21 miles much less 75 .