The GoTo Bermuda Clipper Round The World Yacht Race entry in Hamilton Harbour this week. The Bermuda Tourism Authority has seen a third chief executive leave in just 28 months (Photograph by Akil Simmons)

A person walking down Front Street this week may be surprised to hear that Bermuda’s tourism sector is in turmoil.

Entries from the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race line the docks, visitors throng the streets and the shops and restaurants are busy.

Next week, Bermuda welcomes more than 100 yachts from the Newport Bermuda Race. Just a few weeks ago, the Bermuda Sail Grand Prix beamed images of Bermuda around the world.

And yet, with the departure of Charles Jeffers II after little more than a year in post, the Bermuda Tourism Authority has now seen three chief executives leave in just 28 months.

It is tempting to carry on the nautical theme further; to suggest that the BTA now looks like a rudderless boat being driven towards the rocks while instant experts debate what to do. In the meantime, the sails are flapping and the crew is climbing into the lifeboats.

A nautical theme is indeed apt because promoting Bermuda as a base for yachting and sailing has been one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal period for Bermuda tourism. And yet the Progressive Labour Party campaigned against Bermuda as the site of the 2017 America’s Cup and has been ambivalent about sailing events ever since.

In many ways, this sums up the problem with politicians getting involved in tourism, and helps to explain why the BTA was set up as an autonomous marketing authority in the first place.

Politicians inevitably have an eye on the political temperature and often this means they have a short-term view, usually aligning with the date of the next General Election.

By contrast, an…