Government explanations for the dismal tourism statistics which were recently released don't hold water, Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell has claimed.

And he implored Premier Jennifer Smith to "get the Minister (David Allen) to stop travelling and come back and look at the product".

Mr. Dodwell branded the Tourism Minister the "Minister of Travel" and said it was ridiculous that Mr. Allen was off the Island looking at one cruise ship - with three other people from his department - while tourism numbers continue to slide.

On Friday, the Tourism Ministry released statistics for the first six months of 2001 and the news was bad across the board - a ten percent drop in air arrivals, 20 percent drop in cruise arrivals and a 15 percent drop overall against the first six months of last year.

"Not only will this be the worst year on record, it is the worst year based on six months gone by on record," Mr. Dodwell said.

He said he had gone through tourism statistics for the first six months of the year dating back to 1973 and - with the exception of 1981 when a general strike crippled the industry - nothing matched this year's "massive decrease".

And, he said although the slowdown in the US economy was having an effect on Bermuda's tourism numbers, 2001 marks Bermuda's third year of decline - and during 1999 and 2000 the US economy was booming.

"This is the third successive year of decline under this Government," he said. "The first two were when the US economy was posting record numbers. So we can't be now using the US economy as an excuse."

In addition, Mr. Dodwell said Government claims that Bermuda is in the process of renovating its product - as several Island hotels take advantage of tax breaks under the Hotel Concessions Act to upgrade facilities - do not explain the decline.

He said that if one considers that fewer hotel beds are available as a result of renovations, one would expect occupancy rates to be higher as a result.

"But the occupancy stats to June and the occupancy projections for the rest of the year are pretty awful," said Mr. Dodwell. "And the result is going to be layoffs - layoffs in the summer months."

Mr. Dodwell also took aim at what he called the "abject failure" of the cruise and stay programme.

He pointed out that only 411 people had participated in the programme where visitors cruise to Bermuda and then fill out their vacation by staying in a Bermuda hotel for a couple of days.

"It was projected that there would be tens of thousands of people," said Mr. Dodwell. "The fly-cruise policy is a complete failure. We should abandon it and recognise that cruising and air arrivals are two different industries."

When Mr. Allen originally announced the cruise and stay packages in 1999 he suggested hotels would see and extra 26,000 bed nights each season or up to one thousand each week.

Mr. Dodwell also pointed out that the number of tourists who answer that they believe they received value for money while staying in Bermuda on exit surveys continued to decline.

He said last year that number fell to just 52 percent of visitors - "that was the lowest in history," he said.

The Tourism Ministry failed to release that statistic for the fist half of this year.

Mr. Dodwell called on the Minister to come clean about the this year's numbers. "He's hiding that figure from the public," he said. "Our focus has to be on whether we're satisfying visitors."