official in the Bahamas said.

And Bermuda was one of the top performers among 32 countries surveyed, Caribbean Tourism Organisation director of research and statistics Mr. Arley Sobers said.

Air arrivals to the Cayman Islands were up 19.2 percent to the end of May.

Jamaica was up 12 percent to the end of March, Aruba up 9.4 percent to the end of May, Bahamas up 7.3 percent to the end of May, St. Lucia up five percent to the end of April, and Barbados up three percent to the end of May.

St. Maarten was down 7.4 percent to the end of March.

Meanwhile, arrival figures for Bermuda were up 12 percent to the end of May, Mr. Sobers said.

Economic recovery in the United States was fuelling the rebound after two sluggish years, Mr. Sobers told The Royal Gazette .

In 1991, visitor arrivals in the Caribbean fell 1.7 percent. That was the first decline in total numbers in a decade.

Last year, the figures improved by 2.7 percent to 11.9 million visitors.

"What it has been really is a longer and harder than expected recovery out of the Gulf War,'' Mr. Sobers said. "Last year was not a bumper year by any stretch of the imagination.'' He attributed the upswing this year to "an improvement in the general economic climate in the US.

"What we've got to try and see and hope for is that the economic revival in the US can be maintained,'' he said. "Some of the indicators are not clear.'' Most of the visitor growth was coming from America, while Canada was not performing as well, and Europe was doing about the same as last year. In general, "the pendulum is swinging a little bit from Europe back to North America,'' he said.