signs of a turnaround, Tourism Minister David Dodwell said last night.

And he called on his main critic to ask hoteliers if they were seeing that turnaround.

"Arrival numbers -- which include visiting friends and relatives -- are not the true measurement of tourism success in terms of jobs, revenue earned, etcetera.

"It is about more people staying in hotels, for a longer period of time, and spending more money. It is as simple as that.'' And Mr. Dodwell released the most current statistics to The Royal Gazette which cover these areas.

Actual room nights sold this year between January and August are up by 2.1 percent -- or 10,138 -- over the figure for the same period last year.

The climb from 483,134 over the first eight months of last year to 493,272 this year reflects the number of room nights sold, not the number of people in the room at the time.

"In my view this is the most important statistic,'' he said.

And the climb is reflected in a 3.7 percent boost in hotel occupancies over the same period.

Between January and August in 1997, hotels enjoyed an average occupancy of 60.1 percent. Over the first eight months of this year, that figure climbed 2.2 occupancy points to 62.3 percent.

But it was not simply an increase in the numbers of nights that a room was sold that is causing suggestions of a turn around to come to light.

Mr. Dodwell pointed out that the number of bednights sold between January and August of this year stood at 935,816; 15,745 -- or 2.1 percent -- more than the 920,071 bed nights reported sold in the first eight months of 1997.

And a fourth figure shows that the visitors who stayed in the Island's properties during this period stayed for a longer time.

The average length of stay for visitors to Bermuda between January and August climbed by 2.1 percent from 4.24 nights in 1997 to 4.33 nights in 1998.

And a figure for visitor spending between April and June shows that more money was spent on Island also.

Visitor spending per person climbed from $1,277 in the second quarter of 1997 to $1,373 in the same four months of 1998 -- a jump of 7.5 percent.

"These are the most appropriate benchmarks now. It is a better way of assessing numbers rather than just counting the number of arrivals coming in,'' he said.

Mr. Dodwell stressed he was not being defensive about recent arrival figures which are down.

"I am being positive and looking at what I see is a better year than last year,'' he said.

These new benchmarks were identified in the five year plan for the industry -- Tourism in 2002 -- as the appropriate way to see if initiatives were meeting their goals.

And Mr. Dodwell said he was puzzled that the Progressive Labour Party, and Shadow Tourism Minister David Allen, continued to use arrival numbers as their measurement of success.

"He should have realised by now, or know about the benefit from the numbers given here, rather than simply looking at arrivals.'' He called upon the Opposition to stop harming the fragile industry which so many people were trying to help.

He laid down a challenge for the Shadow Tourism Minister.

"Frankly, I would like to challenge Mr. Allen to call the hotels and tell us their response as to the turn around and the direction we are going in.''