Only 22,000 extra air visitors have come to Bermuda during the first nine months of the year, according to resort operator and Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell.

And he claims the figures show there is still some way to go before it can be argued the Island's tourism economy has "turned the corner."

Mr Dodwell has studied the latest tourism figures and remains concerned by the low level of air arrivals compared to the cruise ship visitors.

He also questions the dollar-for-dollar value of the millions spent on advertising and marketing campaigns when the top line figures for air arrivals show only a 10.1 percent rise year-on-year to date.

By the end of September there had been 236,682 air visitors, up almost 22,000 on the same point last year.

But overall tourism figures to date ? which already eclipse the total number for the whole of last year ? have been skewed by a hefty 46 percent jump in cruise passenger arrivals, the UBP MP points out.

He has long argued cruise ship visitors, who do not need to stay in hotels, spent nine times less on the Island than air visitors.

As things stand Bermuda's balance of air versus cruise arrivals will tip in favour of cruise arrivals by the end of the year, the first time since Bermuda's tourism took of in the 1960s that more visitors have disembarked by gangplank rather than airport steps.

"The figures have been bumped up by cruise visitors. We will surpass 300,000 cruise visitors this year and for the first time that will represent more than half of all visitors.

"People think the industry has turned around. I say we need to be careful. I don't want to be negative, but there's a feeling things are in good shape but in my view they are not," said Mr. Dodwell.

"There's a sense in the community that we have turned a corner but we have just finished seven consecutive years of declining air arrivals."

He said the 10.1 percent increase in air arrivals for the first nine months of 2006 was a start but nowhere near what the Island needs.

Mr. Dodwell also calls for better scrutiny and evaluation of the benefits garnered by staging costly tourism events such as Movies on the Beach, Soul Fest and the Music Festival with regards to attracting overseas visitors.

And he questioned whether the money being spent on these events was disproportionate to the number of visitors they attracted to the Island.

Government figures show there have been a total of 529,633 visitors to Bermuda this year by the end of September, with 287,452 coming on cruise ships, 236,682 by air and the rest on yachts.

Mr. Dodwell said: "Playing up the numbers is not showing the reality. We have to get air arrival visitor numbers up. I doubt our hotel occupancy rates will be above 60 percent for the year.

"It is the air visitors that create the jobs and bring in the spending. I'm worried people think we have turned things around, but it is a slow moving ship and we have to keep pushing and pushing. We have to focus on the quality of the service we give and the product we offer."