Through the first half of this year, there were signs at last that tourism was starting to stage a recovery after 15 year of steady and seemingly unstoppable decline.

Air and cruise arrivals were up compared to the first six months of 2004, and overall arrivals were higher than in 2003.

Indeed, the Bermuda Independence Commission, in its review of social and economic issues that might conceivable be affected by Independence, noted that tourism was stabilising and might be recovering.

That statement, presumably written when the report was being drafted in July and August, now seems utterly hollow.

In part, that's because the authors were unduly optimistic. Comparing figures for the first half of 2005 and the same period in 2004 was always going to be dangerous because many hotels were still closed in the early part of 2004 because of damage from Hurricane Fabian.

The real proof of any kind of recovery would depend on how arrivals compared in the summers of 2004 and 2005, when, to borrow a cliche, apples could be compared with apples.

That evidence is still trickling in, although it will not be possible to say with full certainty what tourism has been like since the beginning of July until sometime next month when the quarterly figures are released.

However, hotel occupancy figures and news of layoffs from properties whose occupancy levels have fallen below 70 percent suggest the high hopes of spring have once again been deflated.

The picture that is being painted so far is grim. Many hotel occupancies were lower in August this year than in the same month in 2004, falling from around 78 percent to 70 percent. For September, many have fallen below 70 percent, which is generally seen as the break-even point for most hotels.

This is worrying, because it suggests that the Island's "high season" now extends from May through August, a scant four months in which the Island's hotels have to make the money they need to carry them though the rest of the year.

Few hotels seem to be unaffected. Long established and successful cottage colonies are seeing lower occupancies than they have for years. New properties like 9 Beaches are struggling even more.

It has been suggested that the increased frequency of hurricanes in the last couple of years has had some effect on this. The idea is that as soon as a hurricane emerges anywhere in the North Atlantic, the Caribbean basin or the Mexican Gulf, prospective visitors cancel their holidays in Bermuda.

Hurricanes are a long term concern. It seems likely that this region is going to see more hurricanes of greater intensity in the next few years, and that places all tourism destinations at risk.

But the idea that this season has struck the Island's tourism industry with anything more than a cursory blow is dubious. No one said last year that Americans were cancelling their holidays when the Caribbean and Florida were hit time and again last year, and there was little evidence of it in previous years either. And there doesn't seem to be much suggestion that cruise passengers have been scared off.

To be sure, when Hurricane Nate seemed to be heading towards Bermuda, some visitors will have cancelled, but the idea that any hurricane anywhere will affect us is wrong.

In the end tourism's problems remain ours to fix, not God's. Again, they come down to cost, service and ensuring Bermuda is a special and unique destination.

On the latter point, Bermuda Alliance for Tourism president and Bermuda Hotel Association chairman Michael Winfield may have got it right when he said last week that Bermuda had become "just another island" with little in the way of marketing or product to set it apart from an ever more competitive field.

Those are words that anyone who cares about tourism should take to heart.