Tourism officials are pinning their hopes on a buoyant summer to stop the rot in the industry and fuel the beginning of a recovery in visitor numbers.

For the first time, Tourism Minister David Allen has publicly stated a target figure for the season which he hopes will be attained with the help of new flights from the US.

The Minister is aiming for an increase of 2.5 percent in air visitors for the year -- which could translate into an extra 8,800 vacationers.

He is hoping the available 34,000 seats on new services -- a TWA service from St. Louis and a second Delta flight from Atlanta -- will bring in new people from the mid-west and west coast.

But his prediction comes as it was revealed that TWA will not fly out of La Guardia during the summer.

The airline had permission for the route, but dropped out after US Airways did a u-turn and reinstated its service which had been earmarked to be dropped.

Mr. Allen said TWA did not want to compete "nose to nose'' during the morning on the route, but added there was a possibility of an afternoon service from the gateway.

He said the signs from agents booking the twice weekly TWA service and the Delta flight were already encouraging, adding that filling 23,000 of the 34,000 available seats was the goal this year.

The Minister said the Department of Tourism was diverting vital funds to support the marketing effort for the new flights in a bid to meet the goal.

"Through advertising, public relations and direct marketing, that is our number one goal,'' he said.

"We must ensure their load factors are high enough to encourage them to run them next year.

"That was the reason for the west coast blitz.'' Special newspaper adverts, radio and direct marketing will be used in areas including Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta and Los Angeles to support the air services.

Tourism Minister in confident mood "They will be very much emphasising the fact that Bermuda is much more accessible, that it is a civilised playground -- somewhere you can have a user-friendly but somewhat exotic holiday,'' said Mr. Allen.

Last year a total of 354,000 air visitors came to the Island, the lowest in 20 years.

This season has been flagged as the "bottoming out'' year, where falling numbers level off, hopefully providing the platform for incremental increases in the following years.

There is additional capacity with the new services and through enlarged existing flights. But there are 1,000 less beds on the Island this year as the total has dropped to below 7,000.

In the recent `Bermuda Tourism Private Sector Long Term Strategy' document, the private sector set estimated targets which included increasing air arrivals to 500,000 by 2003.

David Allen