hotel occupancy rates released yesterday.

Figures showed hotels and cottage colonies filled 27.5 percent of rooms in January, compared to 27.2 percent the year before and 25.5 percent in January 1997.

And Christmas hotel bookings were also encouraging, with December's occapancy rate at 29.6 percent compared to 28 percent the year before.

But the latest statistics, which stretch back three months, were not all positive.

The hotel occupancy rate for November fell to 54.2 percent from 58 percent in 1997.

And projections for the first quarter of 1999 forecast a tourism boom in March but a drop-off for this month and April.

March bookings made on February 1 already show 38.6 percent of Bermuda's hotel rooms snapped up, compared to 34.5 percent of February 1 bookings for March last year and 33.4 percent the year before. But February bookings on the first of this month stood at just 30 percent, compared to 33.5 percent last year and 32.2 percent in 1997.

And reservations computers show just 48.3 percent of rooms have been taken for the busier month of April. Bookings made on February 1, 1998 had already pushed April's occupancy rate to 51.6 percent.

John Harvey, executive director of the Bermuda Hotel Association, said: "The figures are a mixed bag but there's no need to be pessimistic about the year ahead.

"I don't know what the reason for it is. There's no real indicator which suggests we will have a poor February, a good March and a poor April.

"We may have some big groups coming in or something but either way, these figures are not brilliant and they're not terrible either.''