Bermuda's tourism industry faces another tough year ahead, with cruise ship visits up by only one for 2009 compared to last year, but significantly down on three years prior to that, according to the draft 2009 Cruise Ship Schedule.

The schedule, which was compiled by the Department of Marine and Ports Services, revealed that the projected number of visits made by cruise ships for this year increases by one overall to 138 from 137 in 2008, while contract cruise ship visits rise from 112 two years ago to 117 last year, and occasional visits fall from 25 to 21 over the same period.

But the numbers were well down on the total 2007 figure of 203, consisting of 172 contract cruise ship visits and 31 occasional visits and 2006, when the overall visits were 192 and cruise ships and occasionals was 169 and 23 respectively.

In terms of total number of passengers expected to visit Bermuda, 289,476 are projected to come on regular/contract cruise ships and 32,230 on occasional callers.

Broken up, the most visits are scheduled for summer, with 25 ships arriving in May, 23 in June, 22 in July and 24 in August, and the lowest number of ships coming in April (11 ships), September (eight) and November (nine).

Dockyard is set to be the busiest destination, as 59 visits are made to the West End (King's Wharf) and 53 to the New Berth, but Hamilton has only eight visits planned and St. George's just 22, including 21 docking at Ordnance Island and one at Penno's Wharf. Ronnie Maughan, director of operations of the Maughan Group, which runs The English Sports Shop, said he was shocked to see there was only one visit from Holland America Line ship Prinsendam on the list when he checked the schedule online a month ago, while Ms Veendam, which he was led to believe was due to make eight trips to Bermuda, was not on there at all.

When asked his views on the latest schedule for this year, he replied: "Certainly based on last year's experience with the lack of cruise ships in Hamilton, it was an absolutely unmitigated disaster.

"We certainly did not benefit from any passengers disembarking at the Ferry Terminal on Albuoy's Point - I doubt 200 a day wandered into Hamilton and of that not many spent money in the shops."

Mr. Maughan said he was looking at reducing staff working hours and asking employees to take holidays during the economic slowdown and before the tourist season starts.

He said the parts of his business which were based in the West End, East End, hotel shops and its main store on Front Street and relied most on tourism were suffering as a result of the financial meltdown, in particular from a low occupancy rate, and predicted worse was to come.

"We are just battening down the hatches - it is going to be a rough time and we are conserving our funds as much as possible and maintaining staffing levels as best we can.

"There is a lot of talk about what the new President of the United States can do, but I do not think everybody has grasped the fundamental problem with billions and trillions of dollars being spent on the issue, but there are no apparent improvements - that is the scary thing."

Carole Holding, chairman and CEO of Carole Holding Ltd., pointed out that despite one more contract cruise ship being added to the schedule for 2009 from the previous year, the overall number of visits was up by only five, while there was a worryingly low amount of visits being made in September.

The most regular callers are Explorer Of The Seas (23 trips), Norwegian Dawn (22), Norwegian Spirit (22) and Norwegian Majesty (21).

Of the contract ships, Explorer Of The Seas has the highest projected number of passengers at 3,264, closely followed by Caribbean Princess (3,227), Norwegian Dawn (2,465) and Norwegian Spirit (2,465). Norwegian Dawn also claimed the largest number of crew with 1,318, with more than one crew member to every two passengers, while the Explorer Of The Seas, which had a significantly lower ratio of crew to passengers, weighed in with figures of 1,181 and Caribbean Princess 1,163.

Earlier this week, The Royal Gazette reported that travel services receipts fell by $32 million in the third quarter of last year, reflecting a 22.5 percent decline in cruise and air arrivals, according to Government's Balance of Payments figures.

Premier and Tourism and Transport Minister Ewart Brown announced in November 2008 that cruise ship passenger numbers fell by more than a third between July and September last year, from 175,148 to 114,233, but air arrivals dropped slightly from 97,875 to 97,477; with the total number of tourists dropping from 273,242 to 211,917.