Eliminating the hotel occupancy tax could help fill beds and bring more discerning travellers to the Island, according to the Opposition United Bermuda Party.

Senator Michael Dunkley, Shadow Minister of Tourism, said the second quarter's air arrivals, the lowest in almost three decades, showed that "Bermuda tourism continues to flounder at historically low levels".

And he again urged Premier Ewart Brown to step aside from the tourism portfolio and create a tourism alliance, putting the industry in the hands of stakeholders and not politicians.

"Dr. Brown's use of a double negative to spin terrible numbers into something positive — a "slowdown of the slowdown" — says to us that he has reached the end of the line," he added.

"His trumpeting of increased visits to the Bermuda.com site says to us that he is grasping at straws. Accountability for Bermuda Tourism's performance has been missing for too long.

"We also need to recognise that our struggling hotels need help. Grant them and their employees payroll tax relief. Eliminate the hotel occupancy tax to reduce the cost of a Bermuda vacation."

He added that doing so would boost the number of air visitors who spend more than cruise visitors.

On Monday tourism's quarterly bulletin revealed that 74,979 tourists flew to the Island between April and June, a 14 percent decline compared to the same period last year, and the lowest figure since a modern system was implemented to record arrivals in 1980.

Conversely, cruise arrivals, though down three percent since last year, were double what they were a decade ago.

This year 124,552 people have arrived on the Island by cruise. The boom in cruise ship arrivals, which began in 2006, means the overall arrivals figure for the quarter was the fifth best in 30 years.

But Premier Ewart Brown said the figures were a sign of a "slowdown to the slowdown" as they were an improvement on the first quarter of the year which saw air arrivals drop 22 percent and overall visitors drop 27 percent, when compared with 2008.

He added that the Bermudatourism.com website hits were up 81 percent this quarter compared to the same period last year.

Sen. Dunkley said the Government's focus on cruise ship visitors was a case of encouraging "hot dog and hamburger visitors when we have a fillet mignon and asparagus climate" in Bermuda for tourists.

He also criticised the Government for not working over the winter to generate buzz about the Island, and waiting until the spring and summer seasons to start offering discounts and promotions enticing people to visit, particularly from the East coast of the US.