Bermuda’s hospitality industry is still feeling the impact of a global recession, with air arrivals and hotel occupancy down, Premier Ewart Brown said today.

His comments came as he released 2009 tourism figures at a press conference this afternoon.

“The global economy is still a real concern,” Dr. Brown said. “Notwithstanding some signs of recovery, it has not turned around yet. We all know that tourism in Bermuda continues to face challenges to maintain its fair share of an increasingly competitive market.”

Despite all of the challenges of 2009, Bermuda’s total visitor arrivals gained over the previous year. Fuelled by cruises, 559,000 visitors arrived, an increase of one percent over 2008.

In 2009 overall air arrivals dropped 10.6 percent. The fourth quarter saw air arrivals down by three percent compared to the same period in 2008.

Dr. Brown, who is also Tourism Minister, said the number was disappointing because the 235,000 visitors who flew to the Island marked the lowest air arrivals for that quarter in history. But, he said it was an improvement on the first half of 2009 which saw air arrivals for the first quarter fall 22.75 percent compared to 2008 and 14.27 percent for the second quarter. The third quarter saw a 5.5 percent drop in air arrivals.

“Although the number of visitors who arrived by air last year did not increase over 2008, over the year, the results got better and better,” he said. “The results of each quarter of 2009 were better than the results for the one before. This trend of improvement continued into the last quarter, October to December.”

As a result of lower arrivals hotel occupancy was down. The average occupancy for 2009 was 51 percent, compared to 59 percent in 2008 and 67 percent in 2007.

“These results are clearly not good and tell us that there is still much work to be done,” he said. “Bermuda [Department of] Tourism continues to support our hotel partners. Hoteliers have received an unprecedented $2.5 million in direct support for promotions.

“In addition to this direct financial support, the Government has assisted the hotels by deferring payroll taxes. We continue to believe that this continued support is necessary in the near term until we see a tangible turnaround in arrivals and in the economy.”

Read tomorrow’s Royal Gazette for a breakdown of the figures, a look at what has been working, and projections for the coming year.