Tourism Minister Ewart Brown's reasoning that more time is needed to fill the new less-expensive flights to the Island did not wash with his Shadow counterpart David Dodwell yesterday.

“We should be doing it right now,” Mr. Dodwell said from the United States last night. “We should be busting our butts in the first year. Why didn't it happen?”

Mr. Dodwell also voiced fears that tourism arrivals figures will not meet predictions again this year.

“I think Government should be alerting people that the numbers are way off and saying what is being done about it,” he said.

During the 2004 Budget debate in February, then-Tourism Minister Renee Webb said her department was targeting a seven percent increase in tourism arrivals this year over 2003.

At the time, Mr. Dodwell said that figure should be closer to a 20 percent increase as Hurricane Fabian impacted tourism numbers in 2003 even more than 9/11 had. During the Budget debate, Mr. Dodwell also pointed out the strong British pound, Euro and Canadian dollar compared to the US dollar made Bermuda very competitive.

“If we do not have a good year this year, something is terribly, terribly wrong,” he said at the time.

However, yesterday he admitted that prediction of a 20 percent increase in visitors looked improbable. “I don't think we're going to make it and that worries me,” he said.

Visitor arrivals were down for the second quarter of 2004 by five percent and arrivals also slumped in the first quarter of the year.

The numbers for July and August are not yet available, but Mr. Dodwell said he understood they are strong while numbers for September are weak.

“I'm adding it up and we're not making it,” he said. “We should be told this and, more importantly, what Government is doing to correct it.”

As for the flights, Mr. Dodwell said he was worried if they were not filled soon, airlines will be tempted to cease service. “We can't afford not to fill those planes,” he said. “I'm not being a prophet of gloom, I'm just being practical.”

Fares for the American Airlines flight to JFK are already matching USA3000 fares to Newark on Tuesdays and Fridays, he said.

“They're competing, which is fine,” he said. “But we've got to keep them filled. We can't afford to wait until next year.”

Mr. Dodwell also voiced his concern over the decrease in total expenditures on the Island.

Expenditures were down by nearly 25 percent in the second quarter of the year, bringing the total year-to-date decrease to around 22 percent. “That's a huge impact,” he said.

The decrease (about $29 million year-to-date) will not only affect hotels, he said, but spread to other tourism-related businesses.

He called on Government to explain what went wrong, questioning in particular mediums used for advertising.

Television ads, he explained, have been heavily relied upon recently, despite their expense as a mass-marketing tool.

Cheaper “one-to-one” targeted marketing using, for example, e-mail campaigns and promotions, or newspaper and magazine ads, would be more effective at reaching the wealthier, professional families who can afford to come to Bermuda, he said.

Such digital blitzes have already been utilised successfully by many of the smaller hotels on the Island, he added.

The second quarter statistics showed that smaller hotels on the Island were doing well, while the larger resort hotels were seeing decreases in the number of visitors.