Premier and Tourism Minister Dr. Ewart Brown yesterday announced the final tourism statistics for 2008 – and they make for grim reading.

Overall visitor arrivals dropped 12.2 percent or around 80,000 arrivals to 582,980, with air visitors down 4.6 percent and cruise passengers plunging 19.1 percent.

More importantly, estimated spending was down dramatically, meaning that the amount of money brought into the economy by tourism will be significantly down.

The outlook, according to Dr. Brown, is even worse.

In part, that's because Bermuda saw increases in arrivals from the UK and Canada last year as visitors there took advantage of the weak US dollar. Now, the UK pound has fallen to historic lows, while the country is mired in recession and Canada is not much better. So arrivals from those two countries are likely to fall.

In the meantime, projected hotel bookings are 20 to 30 percentage points behind where they were in 2008, suggesting this is going t be a very difficult year indeed.

The only bright spot is in cruise arrivals, where the number of potential visitors is expected to increase, even though the number of ships calling is about even.

That's because the second cruise ship pier at Dockyard is expected to be ready, with or without planning permission, and the ships it can handle are larger.

But for the second year running, there will be very few ships calling on Front Street, which will dampen spending, if this year is any guide.

In the meantime, hotels will be girding for an even worse year than 2008, when occupancy levels averaged 55 percent, well below what most hoteliers say they need to break even. So even with Tuckers Point hotel opening and the Newstead property having a full year of operation, it is likely that some hotels will find it exceptionally difficult to remain in business.

So what's Bermuda doing? Dr. Brown has promised a "battle plan" including heavy promotion of Bermuda in the Northeast US, promotions of the 400th anniversary including giveaways and promotions of some 800 air tickets, among other initiatives.

In terms of airline capacity, Dr. Brown announced last weej Jet Blue was adding another flight this summer from New York's JFK airport and yesterday he said Delta would be restoring its seasonal summer service from New York's LaGuardia airport.

That's good news, because the tourism statistics for 2008 show a dramatic drop in airlift, and any recovery requires additional capacity. There's no doubt that Bermuda's tourism leaders are caught on a cleft stick, as they try to determine if additional marketing will help tourism at a time when most people simply are not spending, or if it is simply throwing good money after bad.

The answer is that Bermuda has to maintain its presence in the market with a clear and well defined advertising strategy. But the real problem remains that at a time when visitors will be looking more intently than ever for value for money that Bermuda remains expensive for variable quality.

That remains the Island's fundamental problem, and if it cannot be fixed, 2009 will be an exceptionally difficult year.