summer to date in the field of air visitor arrivals.

The news comes in two editions of the Cayman Islands' daily newspaper, the Caymanian Compass, dated July 21 and 22 of this year and an Associated Press news brief.

The articles carry the respective headlines "Summer tourism business `flat''' and "Stayover tourism dips''.

They indicate that while the island group's stayover tourist arrivals have set records for each of the past three years, this year there has been a 1.7 percent increase indicating growth is slowing.

And "non-resident'' June air arrivals show a decline of more than three percent compared to the previous year when 31,665 people flew to the Island.

The Associated Press reported yesterday that 240,000 air arrivals have been recorded for the first seven months of the year, up 2.4 percent from the same period last year.

Last year, the Cayman Islands experienced a boon when poor weather in the eastern Caribbean due to an early summer hurricane sent travellers scurrying to the Caymans.

Specifically experiencing a decline in occupancy this year are those hotels that cater to divers, the articles continue, and several dive shops have gone out of business.

Other hotels show flat figures with little or no increase over the previous year.

Elsewhere, cruise ship arrivals in July totalled 63,621 passengers, up 4.2 percent from July, 1996.

More than 540,000 tourists have visited the Cayman Islands this year on cruise ships.

The figures take tourist arrivals in the Cayman Islands 6.8 percent higher last month than in July, 1996.