The second quarter tourism arrivals released on Friday will have been met with some disappointment, and rightly so.The slight improvement in arrivals in the first quarter, coupled with the biennial Newport Bermuda Race, gave rise to hopes that there would be an improvement in air arrivals for the April to June period.Instead, overall arrivals dropped slightly and air arrivals fell substantially, by 6.5 percent. This was largely due to the fall-off in convention business. In 2011, State Farm Insurance took over the Fairmont Southampton for most of the summer, but scaled back this year. Other forms of visitors did not offset this decline, with business visitors falling and vacationers being flat.The decline in business visitors can be attributed directly to the recession in Bermuda, and the other notable decline, in people staying with friends and family, can as well; quite simply, with fewer people living in Bermuda, they have fewer guests as well.As Tourism Minister Wayne Furbert noted, length of stay improved slightly, and this means that bed nights fell by around three percent, an improvement on the overall decline in air arrivals. Much of this was due to an increased length of stay in private homes. By contrast, bed nights in commercial properties fell by ten percent, which is bad for hotels’ bottom lines and for the overall economy, since this is where air visitors spend the most.In the cruise sector, arrivals were flat despite fewer cruise ships calls. As expected, larger ships made up for the drop in calls. Whether that will continue in 2013 when Holland America’s Veendam stops coming and some other lines are also expected to cut back, is a worry for the future.Indeed, there are several worrying portents for the future of Bermuda tourism. But there’s some good news too.The fact that arrivals did not fall by more when there was in fact very little promotion of Bermuda is encouraging, paradoxically. Now with a new campaign prepared, which will presumably be pushed hard in 2013, marketing should have some effect.Although new hotels are nowhere close to coming on line, existing properties appear to be a little more stable, with even those in administration functioning. And there are signs of more Bermudians renting homes and apartments to visitors, which while small, adds a new and welcome arm to the sector at prices that are affordable to visitors.Against that, there is still much to be done.Crime remains a worry, and while this newspaper has praised the police and prosecutors for their success in high profile arrests and prosecutions, more must be done to make our visitors feel safe. The Island’s economic well-being depends on it.Clearly, Bermuda remains an expensive destination and is not yet providing the level of service its prices demand, as some recent letters to the Editor demonstrate. People spending $400 a night for a hotel room should receive $400 a night service, and just one bad experience can mar the entire experience.That’s why every resident of Bermuda should go out of their way to make our visitors feel welcome. We should do it because it is part of our nature and because we have a tradition of hospitality, but if that’s not enough, we should do it because our economic survival depends on it.Clearly, Bermuda’s infrastructure is feeling the strain. While the bus schedule seems to have improved this year, the recent ferry service cancellations have taken their place. This is precisely the kind of bad experience that drives visitors away and must be resolved. To some degree, this is a result of bad planning; throwing thousands of passengers into Dockyard creates precisely the kind of problem the cruise industry is famous for. It requires heavy volumes of transport, shops and so on for relatively short periods of time; an inefficient use of resources. Bermuda has fallen into that trap, but no longer feels it has the luxury of turning the cruise business away.Only when it improves its volume of air visitors will it be able to do that.Above all, in tourism and in international business, Bermuda has to raise its competitiveness. It must deliver a superior product for less than it charges now. That’s a tough adjustment, but it is one that has to be made.