Spending by visitors plunged ten percent in the first three months of this year, Government statistics reveal.

Visitors spent almost $6 million less between January 1 and the end of March than they did in the same period in 1997.

Bermuda's Quarterly Bulletin of Statistics for the first three months of 1998 -- released yesterday -- showed total visitor expenditure slipped from $54 million to $48.6 million, a decline of 10.2 percent.

Spending by air visitors on accommodation and food fell from $32.2 million to $29.6 million while spending on shopping, entertainment and transport slipped from $21.8 million to $18.9 million between January 1 and the end of March.

The 451 cruise ship visitors to the Island during this period contributed approximately $100,000.

There were no cruise ship visits during the first quarter of the previous year.

The drop in spending comes with a six percent decline in air arrivals.

A total of 52,019 people visited in the first three months of this year, compared to 55,346 visitors in 1997, 56,521 visitors in 1996 and 57,393 in 1995.

The major drop in arrivals is in the number of US visitors which fell from 39,702 in the first quarter of 1997 to 36,792 this year.

And along with the decrease in air arrivals were reports of low occupancies for visitor accommodations.

All major types of accommodation were below the levels reached during the first quarter of 1997.

Resort hotels catered to 30,356 guests, 1,756 fewer than the number of guests in the same period of 1997. Housekeeping properties reported a decline of 681 guests -- from 2,876 to 2,195 -- through the same period.

And the lower amount of business appears to have led to a drop in the number of people employed by hotels.

Figures taken at the end of January show that 3,624 people were employed within the hotel industry.

This number is down on the previous year's level of 3,694 by 1.9 percent.

Amongst major hotels the number of workers employed fell 2.5 percent from 3,048 to 2,973.

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