Despite a world wide recession Bermuda saw its first increase in air arrivals this year since early 2007.

While overall air arrivals were down 5.5 percent September's air arrivals were up one percent — the first increase since February 2007. Total arrivals were up 12 percent, buoyed by cruise ship passengers, with 225,000 people visiting the Island between July and September.

The air arrivals numbers were higher than many industry leaders predicted during the summer months.

However the third quarter statistics were the lowest in a decade. In 1999 108,739 people flew to the Island during the three-month period whereas only 79,801 flew to the Island during the same period this year.

Business visitors comprised the greatest numbers. While the number of people flying in for holiday remained almost the same as 2008, there was an increase of 1,000 business visitors this year 8,302 people came to the Island on work-related trips.

Premier Ewart Brown attributed the increases to an aggressive marketing campaign targeted at US East Coast cities, partnerships with hotels and a new digital marketing campaign.

"The good news is that Bermuda continues to hold its own in this very difficult environment when compared to our most immediate competition — the Caribbean," he said. "Just under 60,000 guests stayed in all hotels during this third quarter, a very small decline of one percent over last year. On the other hand, there were dramatic increases in the accommodation categories of Small Hotels and Cottage Colonies. They experienced increases of almost 40 percent and just over 30 percent respectively."

Dr. Brown added that focusing on tourists from cities across the American North East was also paying off.

In September there was a 40 percent increase in visitors on JetBlue flights from Boston and a 28 percent increase from New York. During the course of the three months visitors from New York and Boston increased two percent and five percent respectively. Another success has been bermudatourism.com, Dr. Brown said, which has seen a 180 percent increase in visitors to its site compared to the same period in 2008. And Expedia saw an increase in bookings by 140 percent this September compared to last year.

He added: "It gives me great pleasure to share what happened with a few hotel promotions supported by Bermuda Tourism

• The 48-hour sale — 1,060 bookings for 4,164 room nights.

• Sizzling summer 5,574 bookings for 22,296 room nights.

• The four-day sale 415 bookings for 1,872 room nights.

• 400th anniversary tier offer 5,619 bookings for 20,122 room nights.

He added that the Department of Tourism's direct contributions to hotels was over $4 million in the past 12 months. This included the promotional offers on bermudatourism.com.

"As we approach the end of the year, the Bermuda Tourism team is currently assessing our 2009 activities and formulating a marketing strategy for 2010," Dr. Brown said. "This Government will continue to give solid, strategic support to achieving the goal of increasing the numbers of visitors to Bermuda. I am proud of the way that Bermuda Tourism's team has tackled our serious challenges and I want to take this opportunity to thank them publicly.

"We will never be on the side of spreading doom but, at the same time, we will be realistic about what we are capable of stretching ourselves to achieve."

Said Donte Hunt of the Bermuda Democratic Alliance: "Despite this good news, we must all appreciate that further growth is long term and will not happen over night.

"The Government must continue to find new ways of improving our tourism product in close consultation with the private sector. After all, increased air arrivals and heads in hotel beds is what is required to keep Bermudians employed in the tourism industry and increased airlift will only come with a marketable product.

"We do have concerns over whether the Bermuda taxpayer is getting value for money out of the tourism budget and this will need to be analysed carefully."

The United Bermuda Party did not comment on the third quarter figures by press time.