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Speaker 1: This is a Bloomberg Business Flash from Bloomberg World Headquarters.
Speaker 1: I'm Charlie pellet Hall. One month low for US stocks.
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Speaker 1: stocks extended losses. The dollar climbed after the biggest gain
Speaker 1: in US retail sales in a year, reignited speculation the
Speaker 1: Fed mayliff rates as early as June. The SMP five
Speaker 1: hundred index down seventeen points today, dropping nine tenths of
Speaker 1: one percent. Nav Stacktown nineteen, a decline there of point
Speaker 1: four percent down, Industrials down a hundred eighty five points,
Speaker 1: the drop of one percent, Gold up three fifty the
Speaker 1: ounce to twelve seventy four, a gain of three tenths
Speaker 1: of one percent. Crew down thirty seven cents of barrel
Speaker 1: forty thirty three, a drop of eight tenths of one
Speaker 1: percent I'm Charlie Pelton. That's a bloom bird business flashy. Well,
Speaker 1: that seems appropriate to play as we are broadcasting live
Speaker 1: from Elbow Beach, Bermuda, ocean front enclave of classic style
Speaker 1: and contemporary luxury. And for all those who had to
Speaker 1: go through today's market action with the SMP five hundred
Speaker 1: down that a tens of a percent. Let's see if
Speaker 1: we can sheer people up a little bit. And we've
Speaker 1: got just a person to do that. Bill Hanbury is
Speaker 1: the chief executive of the Bermuda Tourism Authority and he
Speaker 1: joins us now, thank you very much for being with us.
Speaker 1: Him good to be with you. Thanks. That has got
Speaker 1: to be a dream job. It's it's a great job
Speaker 1: to Bermuda is a great destination to be representing and
Speaker 1: a wonderful place to live. My wife and I are
Speaker 1: Americans who had the great opportunity to come here three
Speaker 1: years ago and we've enjoyed every single minute of it.
Speaker 1: And we actually uh get a chance to walk on
Speaker 1: this beach on a regular basis, so we uh it's
Speaker 1: a life is good in Bermuda. I have to say
Speaker 1: it's my first visit to Bermuda and I'm I was
Speaker 1: really surprised. I mean, I just didn't realize how there's
Speaker 1: just something so beautiful about it and the people. There's
Speaker 1: just a culture. There's something about the spirit here that
Speaker 1: is very gracious, very welcoming that I didn't anticipate. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a first it's a first tier country with
Speaker 1: the with some island soul and uh. It is truly
Speaker 1: one of the pre eminent destinations in the world. It
Speaker 1: was for many, many years. So back in the fifties, sixties,
Speaker 1: and seventies, if you are looking for the premiere luxury destination,
Speaker 1: Bermuda was on that list. Kind of lost our focus
Speaker 1: a little bit through the eighties and nineties as international
Speaker 1: business um urged as a kind of a key part
Speaker 1: of the economy. And I'm sure you've probably heard that
Speaker 1: from the premiere when you talk today. But the reality
Speaker 1: is tourism product is still spectacular, and we're now trying
Speaker 1: to balance international business with a more astute understanding of
Speaker 1: our tourism product. Tell us about what you're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 1: What would you like to see Bermuda look like, let's
Speaker 1: say in five to ten years. Well, we still wanted
Speaker 1: him to be the same place it is today. Extraordinary
Speaker 1: sense of service and quality, first tire, safe, secure, a
Speaker 1: place where you can relax but also connect to an
Speaker 1: island vibe that is really kind of unique to Permuta.
Speaker 1: So we're going in that direction. Um. There will be
Speaker 1: significant new development in the next five years in Bermuda
Speaker 1: with new hotel capacity, renovations at hotels. If you take
Speaker 1: a look at the just the energy that exists here
Speaker 1: at Elbow Beach today, UM, this this property is on
Speaker 1: the on the upswing in a big way, as is
Speaker 1: the Bermuda product. And so uh, we're trying to be
Speaker 1: more competitive and more adaptable to uh what is a
Speaker 1: very very competitive environment that we live in. But we
Speaker 1: think we've got the right product to to compete well.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of competition the the Caribbean, many
Speaker 1: island nations there these you know, the the um Minan
Speaker 1: coast of of Mexico, the Mind Review as they call it, right,
Speaker 1: all these have been coming up rapidly Bermuda. Now you're here.
Speaker 1: We had earlier talk also to um uh ed heard
Speaker 1: a bird's excuse me, who's the running able beach? Now
Speaker 1: he's been here just two or three years, so a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of focus. Now government's spending more
Speaker 1: money on this obviously. Yeah. So one of the things
Speaker 1: that happened in two thousand and eight two thousand nine
Speaker 1: is the rest of the arrest of the global economy
Speaker 1: created um Bermuda also had a big shock in international business,
Speaker 1: and I think there was a realization at that time
Speaker 1: that we needed the better balance the country's economy and
Speaker 1: begin to refocus on tourism. And we've been passed by
Speaker 1: by the dubrod Nicks, the Dubai's, the Abu Dhabi's twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, those were not destinations that people were going
Speaker 1: to and um today, Uh, those are dynamic, energized destinations
Speaker 1: and we needed to get up and punch in the
Speaker 1: big leagues against So the country's expending more more financial resources.
Speaker 1: We've sought a higher level of professionalism within the tourism
Speaker 1: authority and within government to deal on this global scale,
Speaker 1: and we're making very significant progress. Certainly, America's Cup was
Speaker 1: one of those defining moments where that was not lightly
Speaker 1: thought about. It was a premeditated, very thoughtful approach to
Speaker 1: go chase America's Cup because year next year in it
Speaker 1: goes to our nautical and marine legacy in a huge way.
Speaker 1: We don't have to fabricate it, we don't have to
Speaker 1: fake it. We're we're really one of the pre eminent
Speaker 1: sailing destinations in the world. And I think, uh, certainly
Speaker 1: America's couple reinforced it. How about the air links to
Speaker 1: North America and other regions around the world to bring tourists. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a great question and and it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's something that sometimes people don't realize where we are geographically.
Speaker 1: Wheels up, wheels down, ninety minutes from JFK, ninety minutes
Speaker 1: from Boston, uh, an hour and forty minutes from Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: two hours from from Atlanta and Miami. So we are, uh,
Speaker 1: we're much more accessible in many respects, at least from
Speaker 1: the East coast in Canada than the Caribbean would be.
Speaker 1: And um, we just need to tell people that we
Speaker 1: need to get that message out. And you know, of
Speaker 1: all of our visitors are coming from the northeastern part
Speaker 1: of the United States, and the more we message into
Speaker 1: the Boston, the Philadelphia, that particularly the metro New York markets,
Speaker 1: the better off we are. And and that capacity, that
Speaker 1: airline capacity is very very important to us to make
Speaker 1: sure that we have the lift necessary to to move
Speaker 1: those new visitors to Bermuda. Well, Bill Hambury, we thank
Speaker 1: you so very much for joining us, and of course
Speaker 1: you crisis management nonprofit CEO, you helped do so much
Speaker 1: in Washington. You see when you were there and you
Speaker 1: got your Master's of Public Administration from the Kennedy School
Speaker 1: of Government at Harvard. That was a few years ago. Congratulations.
Speaker 1: All right, Well Blo Hambury, thank you. He's the CEO
Speaker 1: of the ber Munit Tourism Authority. We want to thank
Speaker 1: everybody who has been so wonderful to us while we've
Speaker 1: been broadcasting live from Elbow Beach, Bermuny, Bermuda. It's an
Speaker 1: ocean front enclave of classic style contemporary luxury. We want
Speaker 1: to thank our technical director Charlie Bohmer, our producers Sam Linga,
Speaker 1: Reggie Brazils in New York. I'm copying Hason with Pim
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