The number of cruise ships visiting the Island is slightly down this year, according to the latest schedule published this week.

Dockyard ? which received a huge boost last year with the arrival of 11 occasional visits from Carnival mega-ships ? will also see nine less vessels, which has worried retailers. The new schedule shows there will be 156 visits this year, down nine on 2003.

The number of contract visits is actually up by three at 146 this year, but occasional visitors are down from 22 to ten after Carnival announced it will be making just one visit this year.

Chamber of Commerce president Charles Gosling yesterday expressed concern that there will be fewer ships visiting Dockyard and he called on Tourism Minister Renee Webb to urgently try to attract more occasional visitors to the West End this summer.

The figures show this year again Dockyard will get two regular callers, the and , but the number of occasional visits falls from 15 to six.

Mr. Gosling (pictured) said yesterday: ?I would have preferred the numbers to remain at the same level as last year.

?After Fabian, if it wasn?t for the cruise ships, a number of retailers would have had to close their doors. It was due to the cruise ships coming back, and the Minister really pushing the cruise ships to come back so early, that enabled shops to survive.

?My main concern is the amount of visitors to Dockyard because the performance of Dockyard is a touchstone on the performance of tourism in Bermuda.

?Last year, Dockyard benefited very well from the visits of the mega-ships, so much so that retailers were adding additional staff to deal with the numbers.

?There is a drop and unfortunately I think it will have a negative effect on retailers in Dockyard, and I would encourage the Minister that if there is an opportunity to find occasional visitors for there that she proceeds with that.?

A large rise in the number of cruise visitors ensured that the overall drop in tourist numbers in 2003 of 0.5 percent was not even worse.

Air arrivals last year fell by 9.6 percent 256,566, but cruise numbers were up 13 percent at 226,097.