Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell has said he was "deeply disappointed" by the third quarter figures released by Government on the number of holidaymakers coming to the Island.

Despite optimism voiced by Tourism Minister Renee Webb over the figures for July to September, 2002, Mr. Dodwell said they were far from healthy.

He said the arrivals and the amount of cash spent by visitors was only marginally up on the same period in 2001, but said the September 11 attacks of that year had meant they could not get any worse. Arrivals after September 11 slumped to virtually nothing.

"Contrary to the Minister's feelings, I'm deeply disappointed in the third quarter figures," said Mr. Dodwell. "They should have been better since last year's quarter was so badly impacted by September 11.

"The trauma of September 11 is over and we should have been much better off in 2002 than we were. We don't have that much to be happy about."

Ms Webb said she believed the figures released on Friday, were encouraging, but said she did not like getting into numbers when looking at the overall health of the industry.

Total arrival numbers of the third quarter, including cruise ship passengers, were up from 178,342 in 2001 to 186,194 last year.

Air arrivals, the vital indicator for the Island's tourism industry, were slightly up from 87,997 to 91,229.

Total visitor spending also rose from $127.8 million in the third quarter of 2001 to $137.3 million last year.

Mr. Dodwell said he believed the final quarter figures for 2002 would not be good, giving a poor overall impression for the whole of 2002.

"I believe overall for last year, it is not going to be good," said Mr. Dodwell. "And our arrivals have been slightly behind for the whole year, which is really worrying because we should have picked up something from the trauma of September 11.

"The 8,000 additional tourists and $10 million additional spending is not good enough when you take into account that the same quarter of the previous year contained September 11."

But Mr. Dodwell said he could not get away from the fact that there were 16,000 fewer visitors came to Bermuda in the third quarter of 2002 than in 2000 and they spent $13 million less.

"The Minister said she didn't like figures, but the truth is that the figures tell the real story," he said. "Arrivals are down, spending is down on the last two to four years, which is really not good for Bermuda. Since the Progressive Labour Party promised a tourism rescue, they have failed. After four years, we still don't have a rescue mission."