showing signs of mild recovery, airport visitor arrivals statistics for the first half of April showed.

Airport arrivals figures -- which Government considers a rough guide to the tourism industry's performance -- appear to have stabilised ahead of last year's bad results.

Numbers for the first two weeks of April are 15 percent ahead of the same period in 1991 -- which was 20 percent down over 1990.

Between April 1 and April 12, 11,986 visitors arrived on the Island, bringing the total for the year so far up to 59,778 visitors.

However, the number is still about 8,000 fewer than in 1991.

Hotel occupancy figures for March and the coming three months reflect this.

March showed a final occupancy of 46.3 percent compared with 59.8 percent last March, Bermuda Hotel Association president Mr. David Dodwell said.

The projection for April is 52.5 percent compared to a final occupancy of 59.7 percent last April, for May -- 54.7 percent compared with a final occupancy of 78.9 percent last May; and for June -- 50.3 percent compared to 83.6 percent.