Trouble in paradise - is gaming the way forward?

From the late 1800s, when Princess Louise made Bermuda synonymous with winter tourism, to the 1930s, with the advent of air travel, forcing Bermuda to become a summer destination due to the guaranteed sunshine of distant Caribbean neighbours, Bermuda has always encountered and overcame challenges as it staked out its spot in an increasingly global world. Tourism arrivals steadily grew until 1980, the year that more than 600,000 visitors, (490,000 of them air visitors) came to Bermuda ? then a record number. Since that time, the jewel in the Atlantic has faced numerous challenges in getting its tourism ?grove back?. While the island still receives some 600,000 visitors a year, two-thirds of them are cruise passengers who spend a fraction of what air visitors spend, so tourism expenditure in real terms has declined. Some residents have proposed gaming as a potential panacea. However, islanders are split as to whether or not the introduction of gaming constitutes responsible tourism and the way back to buoyancy. This paper will examine how the global trend of offering gaming to tourists is causing tourism officials to find a mutually beneficial local approach.