Advertising agency GlobalHue has scooped a renewed contract with the US Navy for initiatives targeting African-American and Asian segments.

The company revealed the move in a press release which also officially announced its controversially renewed deal with the Department of Tourism.

A day after Premier and Tourism Minister Ewart Brown said tourism arrivals had fallen 28 percent for the first three months of 2009, GlobalHue's release claimed its new contract was because of its "outstanding business performance over the past three years".

Shadow Tourism Minister Michael Dunkley yesterday responded by asking whether GlobalHue boss Don Coleman had been to the same school of spin as his longtime friend Dr. Brown.

GlobalHue has worked with the Navy since 2000 and says it has produced "exemplary recruiting results" as well as winning the American Advertising Federation Mosaic Award for Outstanding Multicultural Advertising Campaign.

Mr. Coleman stated: "We are excited and committed to again bring our strategic thinking, innovative tactics and brilliant creative to ensure the continued success of both the Bermuda Department of Tourism and the Navy."

The Premier has faced criticism at home and abroad after GlobalHue was awarded the $28 million two-year Bermuda contract when Cabinet decided not to put the bid out to tender despite falling arrivals and disparagement of GlobalHue's dealings.

GlobalHue's statement said: "Recent published data shows that visitor arrivals to Bermuda increased after GlobalHue became the Island's agency of record in 2006.

"Prior to GlobalHue, the average number of visitors per year from 1990 to 2005 was 531,988. For the last three years that the agency has been managing Bermuda Tourism's marketing efforts, the number of visitors averaged 620,215, representing a 16.6 percent increase over the 15 years prior.

"In addition, on-Island expenditures have increased by $48.9 million in 2006 and another $53.8 million in 2007.

"In 2008, despite the economic downturn, the Island has exceeded the average visitor numbers in the 15 years prior to GlobalHue by 4.3 percent."

The day before that release, Tourism statistics had shown arrivals plummeted from 44,845 in the first three months of 2008 to 32,361 in the first three months of this year.

Meanwhile visitors spent between $734 and $922, compared to $1,013 to $1,216 per person in January to March 2008.

Yesterday, Sen. Dunkley said GlobalHue had used statistics inflated by an increase in cruise arrivals, when its own job was supposed to be to attract air arrivals.

The Premier's response to scepticism over his friendship with Mr. Coleman has been: "I've known Senator Michael Dunkley far longer than Don Coleman, and he did not go to Howard (University)."

Yesterday, Sen. Dunkley said: "I have certainly not known the Premier that long because he only returned to Bermuda in the 1990s; he's a generation older than me.

"People have a great deal of concern about a huge contract that was awarded without being put out to tender.

"Until that question is answered, people will continue to have a suspicion."

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