Air arrivals and the number of hotel beds sold fell again during June -- despite occupancy figures that topped 80 percent for the second month in a row.

Monthly statistics released by the Department of Tourism stated that hotel occupancies in June stood at 87 percent, although it should be remembered that the Island has close to 1,000 less beds than the same time last year.

Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell said: "It is a good sign that the occupancy rate is up,'' but pointed out the number of beds is lower so the base is lower which means this rise is to be expected.

He also said it was good that the UK market continued to perform well but said on the down side, overall air arrivals were still short.

He said: "We are down 1,400 or six percent year to date and this bothers me, especially given the promises given by the Minister that he was going to turn things around quickly''.

Tourism Minister David Allen could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Air arrivals fell on the same period last year by 3.15 percent, bringing a figure of 42,409 for the month.

Total bednights were down 4.68 percent, from 270,311 to 257,668 sold during June. Bednights sold to tourist accommodations-only dropped from 192,063 to 164,872, a fall of 14.16 percent on the same period last month.

Cruise numbers for June were 31,431, down from 31,592 in 1999.

Overall, the total number of visitors to the Island was 73,963, down 2.13 percent on 1999.

Tourism officials were also predicting July's hotel occupancies levels would exceed 80 percent.

However, Mr. Dodwell was concerned about projections for the next few months and said the second half of August as well as October and September were expected to be very poor.

June tourism arrivals off He said: "We don't hear from the Minister about marketing plans addressing these issues for fall.'' And he believed part of the reason was because the Minister has no money left as it has been spent on "road shows'' and had "shot the budget'' and so was now "thin on the line with fall marketing''.

Mr. Dodwell said we should be worried about the next few months because the last few months have been the most travelled in history with US airports having their busiest season ever.

Of Bermuda's key markets, US visitors decreased by 5.4 percent to 34,990.

However, Canadian vacationers increased by 15.46 percent, up to 2,658, and UK arrivals rose by 5.34 percent to 3,178. Europe dropped by 17.73 percent to 659 and the rest of the world category increased by 35 percent to 924 people.

Of the key US regions, the major mid-Atlantic area fell by 5.47 percent, from 17,925 to 16,944.

Northeast US arrivals dropped by 8.84 percent, from 7,441 to 6,783 and the south east increased by 9.26 percent to 6,689.

The Midwest and West regions, which it was hoped would see an increase with the new twice weekly TWA flight from St. Louis, fell during June.

Midwest visitors dropped by 22.07 percent, from 3,535 to 2,755. For the year to date, the numbers fell by 16.31 percent, from 12,635 to 10,574.

In the west, there was a decrease of 7.73 percent, down from 1,940 to 1,790 on the month. And on the year to date, visitors fell from 6,923 to 6,814.

The average length of stay for US visitors dropped very slightly to 5.5 nights, for Canada it rose by a quarter percent to 7.9 nights, the UK fell by less than one percent to 9.8 nights and the rest of the world rose slightly to 10.2 nights.

Large hotels lost most ground with the fall in bednights sold to their guests, dropping 22 percent from 122,759 to 95,910. Small hotels saw a decrease of 8 percent to 26,451.

There was some good news, cottage colonies enjoyed an increase of 5.5 percent to 19,729 bednights sold and housekeeping cottages rose by 8.57 percent to 14,397.