Premier and Tourism Minister Dr. Brown has argued in the past that it is wrong to parse visitors by whether they are coming to the Island for vacation or business.

After all, regardless of the reason for their visit, they are spending money locally and everything helps Bermuda's bottom line.

There is some justice in this, but it is also true that in determining whether the Ministry of Tourism is delivering value for money, you have to have some idea of why people are coming to the Island.

This week's stories in The Royal Gazette have shown that business travellers have been holding up the Island's numbers for air arrivals ¿ who matter more than cruise visitors because of their vastly different spending power.

It should be noted that Bermuda is facing a shortage of hotel rooms this summer due to the closures of the Wyndham and the Belmont. This newspaper also agrees that Bermuda needs a new hotel, and it is inarguable that increased competition on Bermuda's air routes has increased demand.

But it is disingenuous for Premier Dr. Ewart Brown and the Bermuda Government to take credit for a "blockbuster" August and the tourism recovery when it is clear that much of the increase is due to business visitors, who would come regardless of whether $1 or $10 million was spent on tourism marketing. All that can really be said is that they benefit from the increase in flights, which might see them come more often.

The truth is that Government has been doing its best to massage tourism statistics since it came into power in 1998.

First the late David Allen, when he was Tourism Minister, stopped releasing monthly figures at press conferences because he did not like how the media was reporting them and tried to publish them in the Official Gazette.

Later the Ministry moved to quarterly releases. Over time the amount of information available has steadily shrunk, and it has been difficult to make reasoned comparisons as the numbers have been cherry picked.

A year or so ago, statistics showed a massive increase in visitor spending by cruise visitors? Why? Not because passengers were spending much more, but because someone decided to include spending by cruise ship workers without amending earlier spending statistics.

When Dr. Brown responded to our stories on business visitors on Monday, he said "some media have put a new-found emphasis on separating certain kinds of visitors, which is perfectly fine".

In fact, there's nothing new in the media's interest in the difference between business and vacation visitors. It was Dr. Brown who stopped releasing the breakdown and when asked to do so, refused, claiming "a visitor is a visitor".

It was only when the Department of Tourism released the monthly analyses to this newspaper last week that this newspaper was able to publish them.

The bottom line is that for the year through the end of August, the number of "paying guest" vacationers coming to Bermuda by air and had fallen by 5.8 percent or 8,742 people to 143,055 while the number of business visitors had risen by 30 percent or 7,455 to 32,325 year over year. This almost offset the decline in vacationers, without even allowing for the real possibility that some business visitors might say they are here on vacation.

What has ensured that the numbers are positive so far this year is the 29 percent or 7,455 person increase in people staying with friends or relatives. It is reasonable to assume that some will have been influenced by tourism marketing, but that's probably not the main reason for their visit.

The question then is this. Is Bermuda getting value for money for its tourism spending if year over year the number of "true" vacation makers is falling?

And if we're not, and the numbers suggest this is so, does that mean that Dr. Brown can truly take credit for tourism's recovery?