The battle goes on

FRIDAY, JAN. 27: Tourism seems to be looking up.

For 2011, overall arrival numbers are up. So is income. 

The Third Quarter Bulletin of Statistics covering the period January to September 2011 says that the combination of Air Arrivals and Cruise Arrivals is producing a higher total number than for 2010.

Even better, the all-important National Income from Tourism also seems to be up.

For the nine months [Jan - Sep] reported for 2011:

                               2010        2011        Change

Air arrivals               185,183    191,203   +3%

Cruise Arrivals          321,295    349,198   +9%

When I make conservative assumptions about 2011’s fourth quarter, I get this:

                             2010       2011     Change

Air Arrivals             26,636    27,000   Up

Cruise Arrivals        47,079    48,000   Up

For all 2011, I anticipate that total arrivals and total income might look like this:

                               2010       2011     Change

All Arrivals               580,193   615,401   +6%

National Income       $384m    $425m    +11%

2009 was an abysmal year. 2007 was a bumper year. The five-year picture is shown in the graph, right.

This good news from tourism helps compensate for the spluttering, coughing and wheezing from Bermuda’s main economic driver — financial services (AKA international business).

However, a big chunk of tourism’s extra $41m is immediately gobbled up in soaring debt service costs that, in just one year (2010/11 to 2011/12), have shot up from an annual obligation of $85m (2010/11) to the just reported (12 Dec 11) annual cost of $100m (2011/12). 

So $15m of that Tourism supplied $41m in extra national income has already disappeared down the drain of debt Service Costs. Gone before it got here.

Over on the left flank where the tourism platoon is fighting its lonely battle, there is some good news.

But on the right flank and in the centre where the financial services regiment is fighting its much bigger battle, the news is not so good and there, the battle line is still receding.

Still, in all this national financial mess, there is some good news.