New money-based statistics show tourism increase

New revenue-based hotel statistics paint a positive picture of the island’s tourism industry.

The figures, which have not been released before, focus on how much money is being pumped into the island’s economy through the hotels rather than just visitor numbers.

They show that this September the average daily rate (ADR) as well as the revenue per room available (RevPAR) increased by seven and 14 per cent respectively on the previous year.

The ADR and RevPAR for the first nine months of 2013 were also up by six and seven per cent on the same period in 2012.

David Dodwell, chair of the new Tourism Authority, welcomed the latest statistics.

He added: “It’s really good news and a step in the right direction for the hotel industry.

“It’s a positive trend and shows that we are doing better than just the one per cent air arrival increase that we had predicted for 2013. Hotel revenue is obviously not the only revenue generated by tourism, but it does have a huge contribution to the economy.”

Mr Dodwell told the Bermuda Sun: “This is a new way to measure effectiveness and results. The old way of simply looking at occupancy and visitors did not give a true measurement of how much people were spending while they were visiting the island.

“But these figures, which are used across the world to measure success, go directly to dollar contribution.”

Earlier this month the third quarter tourism statistics revealed that air arrivals had increased slightly.

There had also been a significant rise in the number of convention travellers coming to the island between July and September. Cruise arrivals, however, had dropped 12 per cent compared to 2012.

From the beginning of 2014 the Tourism Authority will provide the public with regular updates on the latest visitor and revenue statistics to determine the success of new initiatives.

Mr Dodwell added: “My goal is to provide updates on a monthly basis. This country needs to know how we are doing so we can react quicker to what is going on around us. This is just the beginning, these two yard sticks will be expanded  upon and we will dig deeper for more meaningful statisics.” n