The promise of competitive air fares from low-cost airlines and Spirit Airlines, as well as a charter operator offering a special $49 round-trip tickets for North American visitors to Bermuda, has been welcomed by Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell.

But he is worried the Island is going down the wrong road in relying heavily on cruise ship passengers to make up visitor numbers at the expense of holidaymakers arriving by air who pump more money into the economy and help preserve local jobs by using hotels, restaurants and facilities.

Mr. Dodwell expects the balance of cruise to air arrivals to reach a tipping point this year with the number of cruise arrivals outstripping those flying to the Island.

?I?m delighted JetBlue is coming,? he said. ?It will provide competition on routes that are already flown. Most air service to Bermuda, except Boston, is provided by one airline flying out of one airport destination.?

?There is no competition on these routes so the idea of getting a JetBlue in and creating competition is good.?

However, he warned: ?But you can?t guarantee low airfares, you?ve got to hope that it?s going to produce low airfares, so the challenge is not only to bring the air service in but then for those airlines to go and produce low airfares. It?s a two-step process to get the service and encourage them to compete.?

When it comes to cruise ships the figures produced by Tourism Minister Dr. Ewart Brown show that cruise arrivals have been steadily rising since 1998 mirrored by a decline in air arrivals.

In 1998, when the PLP Government took control, there were 396,971 air arrivals compared with 188,331 cruise visitor arrivals. Last year the gap between the two had narrowed with 269,587 air visitors and 247,259 cruise visitors.

Giving a presentation last week on the future of tourism in Bermuda, Dr. Brown said it was anticipated there would be 333,000 cruise visitors during 2006, and repeated a short-term goal of building air arrivals to 400,000.

It appears from the figures and trends that 2006 will see Bermuda, for the first time, have the majority of its visitors disembarking from gangplanks rather than airport steps.

UBP MP David Dodwell said: ?I have always had a major issue on where the current Government, and it?s not just the Minister, over the last five years has taken Bermuda in the cruise ship arrival direction.

?I support cruise ships, but it is important to have the right balance.

?Last year we had record cruise arrivals, the projection for 2006 is 333,000 visitors so in two years, by my calculations, we will have raised cruise ship arrivals by 62 percent.

?This year for the first time we will have more cruise arrivals than air arrivals and that is not good. The air arrival visitor spends approximately eight times as much on Island as a cruise arrival and that does not include jobs and the trickle-down effect of an air arrival staying on the Island.?

Government statistics reveal an air passenger spends on average between $1,077 and $1,238 per visit.

Mr. Dodwell said: ?We have seen a decline in air arrivals, read everything in that ? decline in spending, decline in jobs, and in hotels. Air arrivals have gone down for seven years, cruise arrivals have gone up but the overall impact on the economy has gone down.

?We have got to build air arrivals. 333,000 cruise arrivals is a huge number. Can we handle them?

?The Minister says we can because they are spread out and coming both earlier and later in the season. But the jury is out, that?s a big number.

?Everything has got to be clicking; taxis, buses. Can the beaches handle them, can the restaurants handle them? Have we accepted too many and will the experience for everybody be a good one? I do worry about that.?

In Mr. Dodwell?s opinion the secret to success is getting the balance right between air and cruise visitors. He said: ?The optimum balance in my view is somewhere around 30 percent cruise and 70 percent air. That?s roughly where we were when the UBP were in Government.

?The Minister says a cruise arrival is better than no arrival. But it is a short-term fix for a long-term problem.

?There have been eight years of decline in air arrivals. I glory in the Minister?s efforts but my worry is that we don?t have our eye on the right ball.?