the same month in the past two years.

And Tourism Minister David Dodwell called on the public to focus more on these figures than air arrivals as they gave a truer indication of the state of the Island's hospitality industry.

Bermuda Hotel Association president Dennis Tucker said: "Hotel and cottage colonies combined achieved a final occupancy of 80.4 percent for the month of July which is 6.1 points ahead of the level attained in July, 1997, and 6.7 points ahead of 1996.'' And hotel occupancy projections over the next three months are up on the past two years.

As of August 1 of this year, bookings for August, September and October are ahead of the bookings achieved at the same time in previous years.

Bookings for August, September and October stand at 69, 53.8 and 53.5 percent respectively.

As of August 1, 1997, and August 1, 1996, bookings for these months stood at 66.8, 47.3 and 52.4 percent and 65.2, 44.7 and 47.6 percent respectively.

Mr. Dodwell said the public needed to pay more attention to these figures than air arrival statistics.

Although July air arrivals were down 0.55 percent on July, 1997, and year-to-date air arrivals were down 2.09 percent, hotel occupancies are up and some hoteliers have reported their best years in a decade, he said.

"The problem is that the measurement of air arrivals is not an appropriate indicator of whether we are doing well or not. July air arrivals were down but hotel occupancies were up.'' This was why tourism's five year plan, Tourism in 2002, had identified two leading tourism performance indicators -- the number of room nights sold annually and the amount of money visitors spend.

"We need to diminish our emphasis on air arrivals and raise our emphasis on room nights sold because that is a true reflection of the state of the industry,'' stressed Mr. Dodwell.

Air arrival figures are distorted by visiting friends and relatives who stay in private homes and make less contribution to the economy than those guests who stay in hotels.

"Hotel guests are more valuable economically.'' Mr. Dodwell continued: "Hotel occupancies have still been high although hotels have been closed.

"The number of room nights sold in July exceeded those in the past two Julys even with Lantana and part of Elbow Beach closed.'' In July, 79,802 out of an available 99,231 room nights were sold.

In July, 1997, 76,064 room nights out of a possible 102,424 were sold while during the previous July, 77,034 out of 104,470 were sold.

Mr. Dodwell pointed out that only one month this year -- March -- had not exceeded occupancy figures reached during the first seven months of the previous two years.

"I think that is a very good sign. I am very pleased and encouraged. I think we will have a better year this year. Air arrivals might not show that but room nights will be up over last year.''