(Barbados Nation) Rejecting opposition forecasts, Government is predicting a ten per cent decline in tourist arrivals by year-end.

“We will not finish this year [with arrivals] up,” Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy conceded during a news conference at his office in the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre on Saturday.

“But I am anticipating that we will finish this year in the vicinity of ten per cent down. It may be just under that.”

Sealy was responding to comments made by Opposition Leader Mia Mottley during a Press conference on Friday.

Mottley charged that tourism arrivals were already down 20 per cent in October and were expected to fall further because a number of flights to the island would be discontinued. Sealy said her charges included “misrepresentation” of the facts at a time when the island was having new airline contracts and a larger number of flights from major tourist destinations.

Provisional figures from Sealy’s office show long-stay arrivals between January and September this year falling 11.5 per cent to 380 764, from 430 326 at the end of September 2008.