Year-end tourism arrival figures show Bermuda's woes continued in 1997 with a drop in total visitors of almost two percent from the previous year's total.

The drop follows a whopping 5.7 percent drop in 1995 and a 3.47 percent climb in 1996.

The news came in the latest Bermuda in Perspective -- an analysis of monthly visitor statistics issued by the Department of Tourism -- which was released yesterday.

The document also showed that amongst the three categories of air, yacht and cruise, only the latter registered an increase in arrivals.

Tourism Director Gary Phillips said: "The last quarter of 1997 was a relatively strong quarter and air arrivals for December were actually up two percent year on year.

"The overall air arrivals were down and we are concerned that we didn't make a stronger showing in the summer months because that is when we are normally able to make the type of gains necessary to give us a healthy balance at the end of the year.

"When we realised that things were not going as well as expected in the middle of the year, the Minister decided, in consultation with the hotel industry and the Tourism board, that it was time for us to take a fresh look at everything we are doing.'' Mr. Dodwell has already decided to drop the Let Yourself Go TV advertising campaign across the US in a bid to attract "more upscale'' visitors to Bermuda.

Some 181,885 people cruised to the Island last year, the majority -- 168,219 -- coming from the United States. This marked an increase from this country of more than two percent over the previous year.

For air arrivals, the total reached in 1996 slipped 2.7 percent to 380,059 last year. More than 303,200 of these flew in from the US but arrivals from that country slipped more than four percent over 1996. Arrivals from the Mid-Atlantic, North East and South East states all registered drops in visitor numbers while the Mid-West and West states both showed increases.

Air arrivals from the US for December were also down by more than four percent over totals reached in December, 1996.

Each region of the US registered a decline in visitors for the last month of the year over December, 1996, except the Mid-Atlantic states -- where the Department of Tourism focuses the majority of its advertising -- which increased by 1.96 percent.

However arrival figures from Canada, the UK, and the Rest of the World for the year all showed increases of 2.4, 5.9, 0.1 and 4.7 percent respectively.

Arrivals from Europe registered a decrease of 1.96 percent.

And December, 1997, figures showed massive jumps of over 20 percent for arrivals from Canada and Europe while the UK and Australia had increases of 19.45 and 16.67 percent respectively over totals reached in December, 1996.

But the total number of visitors from these countries last year totalled 76,437 -- just 20 percent of the total arrivals.

Seven hundred and thirty six people arrived by cruise ship and departed by air last year while a total of 4,397 people visited the Island by yacht.

Other information contained in the latest Bermuda in perspective disclosed that the year-to-date average length of stay slipped from 5.22 nights in 1996 to 5.17 nights last year.

Meanwhile bednights -- a key indicator of visitor spending -- showed increases in December, 1997, for Canadian, UK and European arrivals over December, 1996.

However, arrivals from the US and the rest of the world had decreases of 9.3 percent and 41.2 percent respectively. The news meant a 3.1 percent drop in total bednights for the month.

This was reflected in the year-end totals for benights with a 3.5 percent drop from 2,365,221 in 1996 to 2,283,338 in 1997.