The Tourism Ministry has vowed to increase air arrivals to 400,000 over the next three years, have daily flights to the UK and will open a gateway to Italy by 2006, Tourism Minister Ewart Brown told the House of Assembly on Monday night.

On the matter of Bermuda as a "saleable product", Dr. Brown said he was committed to creating a framework for the development and upgrading of golf courses, spa facilities, scuba diving facilities and sport fishing operations. This includes making amendments to the Hotel Concessions Act 2000, which will make the Act more user friendly and more attractive to existing hotel partners as they strive to upgrade their facilities

There is also some major redistribution of funding within the Ministry.

The department's budget allocation of $36,511,301 for 2005/2006 represented an increase of $814,902, or two percent, from last year. Dr. Brown said the increase was due to a cost of living increase and said he was committed to doing more with less this year and would be redistributing funds within the overall programme.

This includes transferring all event marketing funds from marketing to product development, transferring funds from sales to product development to support the entertainment initiatives and reductions in direct marketing and public relations.

One point Dr. Brown voiced more than once last night was the co-existence between air and cruise arrivals. Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell said a balance needed to be found between air and cruise arrivals.

It's estimated that this year 46 percent of all visitors will arrive by air, while 54 percent coming by cruise ship.

"We're going in the wrong direction," he said.

"We've got to get more air arrivals and then the question comes up of comfortable carrying capacity that our services can provide," Mr. Dodwell said.

He referred to a study done in 1996 which said that Bermuda could comfortably accommodate up to 4,000 tourists a day.

Cruise ship passengers spend on average less than $100 during their visit, while air passengers spend on average up to $1,300 ? which includes accommodation.

Mr. Dodwell felt instead of increasing flights to Bermuda, the Government should be looking at cheaper fares.

"The biggest concern I have is that these air fares are still not coming down," he said, adding that more pressure needed to be put on the airlines to reduce fares.

Mr. Dodwell questioned whether Bermuda's facilities could handle the number of passengers Dr. Brown spoke about, emphasising the need for hotel development as well as tourism development in general.