September saw almost 5,000 less visitors arrive by air in comparison to the same month a year before.

Meanwhile, the number of visitors arriving by cruise ship fell by more than 6,000 for the same period.

The combined figures take the total number of visitors for the month to 50,297 and the year-to-date total for the first nine months of the year to 453,581.

The news comes in the latest batch of visitor statistics released by the Department of Tourism which are for September this year.

The drops were attributed in part to Hurricane Gert's close passage by the Island during the month.

A Government spokesman reported: "Extensive overseas publicity covering the storm's path and the forced one-day closure of the Bermuda International Airport helped contribute to an over-14-percent decline in arrivals compared to last year, the latter having directly accounted for an estimated 1,000 of the near 4,800 fewer air visitors.'' He added that the hurricane's impact on the number of cruise ship arrivals was far more significant.

Arrivals down for September "Three regularly scheduled cruise ships bypassed the Island entirely in the wake of the storm, resulting in a near 24 percent decline in arrivals for the month.'' But even amongst the gloom there was a bright light.

"With well over 171,000 visitors, the total number of cruise arrivals for the year-to-date remains ahead of last year -- up over four percent,'' noted the spokesman.

Air arrivals from Bermuda's major markets experienced double digit declines.

The number of visitors from the US fell nearly 12 percent from 25,804 in September, 1998, to 22,786 last September. This took year-to-date figures from 232,491 in the first nine months of 1998 to 225,810 in 1999.

Canadian arrivals fell nearly one-third, from 2,961 to 2,034. This took year-to date figures to 22,071 this year from 24,763 in 1998.

UK visitors declined more than 20 percent from 3,451 to 2,753, dragging year-to-date arrivals down from 22,474 in 1998 to 21,555 for this year.

Europe remains the only market to show an increase in the number of arrivals for the first nine months of this year in comparison to the same period last year.

That figure rose more than 15 percent, but September, 1999, figures were down more than 11 percent -- from 663 to 589.

Bednights -- a key indicator of visitor spending -- dropped by nearly 12 percent in the month of September with guest houses experiencing the largest decline of almost 24 percent.

Large resort properties saw their bednight figures drop by nearly 20 percent.

For the year thus far, the commercial bednight total is down nearly seven percent versus the January to September period in 1998 -- from 1,304,598 to 1,216,842.

And other statistics show that of the 61,000 seats offered to the Island by its seven serving airlines, 66 percent were filled resulting in more than 40,000 passengers.

For the year-to-date, airlines have filled 74 percent of the more than half a million seats they make available through flights to the Island.