Arrivals in the third quarter of last year were slightly up on 2001, when tourism was devastated by the September 11 attacks, new figures yesterday show.

Tourism Minister Renee Webb said the figures were "encouraging", but acting Bermuda Hotel Association President Michael Winfield said they were "disturbing" because the Island has not bounced back from the slump as strongly as was needed last year.

Total arrival numbers for the third quarter, including cruise ship passengers, were up from 178,342 in 2001 to 186,194 last year.

Air arrivals, the vital indicator for the Island's tourism industry, were up from 87,997 to 91,299.

Total visitor spending also rose from $127.8 million in the third quarter of 2001 to $137.3 million last year.

Resort hotels saw the number of visitors for the quarter go up from 41,940 to 47,940, but small hotels and cottage colonies experienced a further fall from 19,441 to 19,102.

While Ms Webb took some comfort from the figures, Mr. Winfield said 2002 will be a disappointing year because bookings were not strong enough.

Ms Webb told The Royal Gazette: "I am not getting into the numbers because it doesn't give a true picture of the state of tourism, but the numbers are encouraging.

"As a consequence of September 11 we would hope the figures would go up, the only way is up.

"We are looking forward to continuing to strengthen tourism with the global advertising campaign that will be launched later this month in New York.

"There have been a number of positive developments with hotel investment, improving the product, and the electronic advertising through television and I think that should have an impact and next year the impact will be "Americans are very cautious with respect to travelling after any attack and what will have an impact is whether or not President Bush decides to attack Iraq.

"That could affect us because Americans like to stay at home when there is a war or attacks on Americans, so I am keeping my fingers crossed he doesn't go to war.

"The numbers don't always correlate with spending and figures seem to indicate we are getting a higher quality tourist spending more."

Mr. Winfield said: "These are not healthy figures because they represent a significant part of what is becoming a diminishing season.

"While there was some improvement in occupancy over the previous quarter, the summer did not have the strength that we need to power the hotels through the year, and that is a concern.

"Not only is the winter very quiet, but the summer was not as strong as it needs to be.

"We are comparing the trauma of September 2001 with a quarter last year that did not have the same trauma.

"I am not surprised by these figures given by what we have experiencing. We were not getting the recovery we were hoping for and the fourth quarter is going to show very little improvement.

"The 2002 figures, given the 2001 trauma, are disturbing. The last quarter of this year has been very disappointing. Across the board, we have not got the reservation activity we had hoped for."

He said discounting in the Caribbean for the winter - the on-season for islands further south - while Bermuda had also been discounting had hit the Island badly.

"The combination of a sluggish economy and the threat of war in Iraq has created an unsettled market," he added.

Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell could not be contacted for comment.