Air arrival numbers are but one component in the overall tourism picture and should not be used as a sole gauge of how the industry is performing, a Department of Tourism official said yesterday.

Tourism Director Mr. Gary Phillips warned that too great an emphasis had been placed in the media and other circles on statistics that have little value when taken out of context.

More important, he said, are the kind of visitors Bermuda attracts, the length of their stay and the amount of their expenditure.

Compared to the Bahamas, for example, Bermuda receives roughly 2.4 million fewer visitors a year. But visitors to the Bahamas come in a variety of forms, many of them staying less than a week and therefore spending less.

"Is that the sort of business we want for Bermuda?'' Mr. Phillips asked.

"We have to put these kinds of things in perspective.'' At the same time, he stressed, Bermuda had some of the most varied accommodations of any tourist destination in the world.

"We are not discriminatory,'' he said. "We are preferential.'' Given Bermuda's strengths, Mr. Phillips said he could not understand why some people had become so negative about tourism here.

"The individual worldwide has gone through some trying times (in recent years) and Bermuda cannot escape that,'' he said.

But, he added, "raw statistics (like monthly and especially weekly air arrival figures) are not the sole criteria by which you should judge performance.'' If an observer, in fact, were to examine the Tourism Department's own monthly air arrival forecasts, he would see that the rate of fluctuation between last year's figures and this year's are minimal, he said.

In April, for example, there were roughly 1,700 fewer arrivals than in the same month last year and about 1,800 fewer than the Department forecast. In March, by contrast, there was an increase in both cases.

Increases, however, are to be expected during the slower winter months, Mr.

Phillips said.

He said that the summer months almost never show dramatic jumps in tourism because the Island's hotels and guest houses are usually filled to capacity.

"There comes a time when your cup runneth over and you just have no more room.'' This, however, does not mean the industry is in decline, he said.

Mr. Gary Phillips.