Entered by Bermuda Tourism Authority and RedSky Strategy

Following a decades-long decline in tourism, Bermuda is now experiencing a resurgence—a comeback boosted by successfully hosting the America’s Cup in 2017 and leveraging its legacy benefits. Prior to this resurgence, Bermuda's tourism decline was caused by, among other things, increased competition (and spending) from other destinations, lack of awareness in what the island has to offer, as well as static airlift. Bermuda had last developed a National Tourism Plan (NTP) in 2012, but that blueprint was unable to interrupt the trends of a declining industry and by 2018 the plan was out of date & few of the strategies had been successfully implemented. So while Bermuda was in comeback, systemic issues remained. The 2018 National Tourism Plan strives to solve those systemic issues. Through in-depth stakeholder analysis and research among visitors, non-visitors and residents, the team identified a number of core challenges.