occupancy figures.

At the top of the pile was Tourism Minister David Dodwell's hotel, The Reefs, which only had one free room with a 98 percent occupancy rate.

General manager Neal Stephens said the Southampton hotel was busier than last year and had enjoyed full bookings since Christmas Eve with guests now starting to make their way back home.

The hotel had a party to bring in 1997 with 1,152 balloons, added Mr.

Stephens, which took all day to inflate but about five minutes to pop.

Close behind was the Paget hotel, Harmony Club, which enjoyed a 81.69 percent occupancy rate, said front office representative Shane Curtis.

The guests were predominantly repeat visitors, he continued, most of whom had been at the hotel last year for its New Year's "big bash''.

Meanwhile a spokeswoman for the Belmont Hotel said the Warwick facility was "quite full'' over New Year's Eve but had started to quiet down again.

Guests at the Belmont had a choice of either attending a casual party or a gala event and both locals and visitors took advantage of the offering.

The woman added that precise figures were unavailable yesterday.

In Somerset, Cambridge Beaches' managing director Mike Winfield said the resort did not reveal its occupancy figures.

However, he said it had enjoyed "a reasonable New Year's'' which compared favourably to last year as did the year's figures as a whole.

Elsewhere the Elbow Beach Hotel enjoyed close to 70 percent occupancy on New Year's Eve, said front office manager Wolfgang Griener.

Of that 70 percent, he added, about one quarter were visitors while the rest were locals taking advantage of the selection of parties the Paget hotel was offering.

And at the East End of the Island, the Grotto Bay Beach Hotel and Tennis Club boasted about 120 guests on the last night of the year, said a spokeswoman.

She added that more than half of these guests were visitors.

Sonesta Beach Hotel vice president Dennis Tucker reported that the Southampton resort had an occupancy rate of approximately 50 percent.

He added that the hotel's festivities went very well and hosted both visitors and locals but he could not provide a breakdown of the numbers.

Mr. Tucker could also not say how this year's figures compared to those of a year ago as he did not have the necessary information.

A spokesman for Marriott's Castle Harbour Resort said he did not have occupancy figures available for New Years Eve but he could say there were more people staying at the hotel than there had been in recent weeks.