of Bermuda's tourism season.

When compared to April of 1994, air arrivals for the month dropped by five percent to 37,024, while cruise ship arrivals plummeted 30.1 percent to 7,324.

At 101,756, year-to-date arrivals are now down 7.1 percent compared to the same point last year.

The only good news was that the average length of stay for all air visitors increased to 6.1 nights, from 5.6 nights in April of 1994.

The Bermuda Hotel Association also reported a slight increase in the length of stay of its visitors, to 4.8 nights from 4.6 nights.

And total "bednights'' -- the total number of nights visitors spent in Bermuda -- rose four percent to 226,499. Bednights are often used as a gauge of visitor spending as food and board are typically holidaymakers' heaviest expenditures.

Large hotels were the greatest beneficiaries, with bednights increasing 6.5 percent to 109,222 from 102,588 for the month while bednights for the year rose 4.1 percent to 287,127.

This contrasted with the number of visitors staying in hotels, which fell four percent to 21,106 for the month and 1.1 percent to 54,380 for the year.

Most other types of accommodation except private clubs experienced declines both in the number of guests and the length of time they were on the Island.

Arrivals from Europe were up by 25.7 percent to 656 and arrivals from the United Kingdom were up slightly. But American arrivals dropped 6.7 percent, to 29,716, and Canadian arrivals were down 1.0 percent, to 4,035. Meanwhile, arrivals from all other countries were up by 12.6 percent, to 581.