-- and those extra customers have set the cash tills ringing on Front Street.

Relieved merchants, sighting the end of the recession, report rising sales boosted by the arrival of packed cruise ships.

And their optimism seems confirmed by figures for last week, which showed a jump of 14 percent in visitor arrivals.

"Business is definitely booming at the moment,'' said Mr. John Casling, whose firm runs the stores Bananas, Smugglers Reef and J-Birds. "It's way up on last year.

"The cruise ships are full, the hotels are full and more important than that the tourists are spending, there's no doubt about it. "We haven't seen business like this since 1989, and that was an excellent year. We monitor our average sale per person and we've found that has gone up dramatically.'' At Makin' Waves, owner Mr. Stuart Joblin said: "This month is shaping up and it'll be better than last year for sure.

"The cruise ships make all the difference in the world. The tourists seem to really like the two new ones. It was a good move bringing those in.

"I think people are actually spending more, I really do. Instead of buying one shirt they're buying two or three.'' Mr. Hugh Watlington of Sail On was also in a positive mood. "It's not like it was a few years ago,'' he said, "but we're finding people are buying. Sales are definitely up.'' At Triminghams, Mr. Eldon Trimingham commented: "Our feeling is that they're spending very well. The rough figures we see here in Hamilton would indicate there are more of them and that they are spending as much per head as they did a year ago.

"But I'm not sure whether the hotel people are spending as much as they were a year ago.'' Mr. Peter Cooper, of Coopers department store, said: "We're slightly ahead on last year, but we've been showing better performances in our hotel shops for sure, because their occupancies are better than last year in particular.

"Our tourist departments are doing better than last year at the moment but only marginally.'' Visitors arrivals increased in April compared to the same time last year, despite a fall in cruise arrivals.

Air visitors rose by 20.6 percent with a total of 40,668 in the whole month.

Arrivals from the United States and United Kingdom rose by more than 20 percent, with a staggering 71.7 percent rise from Europe.

There were 10 cruise calls during April bringing 9,876 passengers compared to 12 cruise calls bringing 10,342 people in 1992.

Total arrivals for the year rose by nearly six percent to 99,372, with nearly 90,000 coming in by plane.

Large hotels benefitted most from the increase in visitors with "bed nights'' rising by more than 25 percent to 112,409 in April. Other types of accommodation had smaller increases or decreases.