A backbench MHK has called for the Minister in charge of island tourism to resign over a sharp drop in visitor numbers.

The latest passenger survey shows that visitor numbers fell by more than 25,000 last year, a drop of 8.7% on the previous year, and at 266,850 the lowest figure since 1992.

Douglas East MHK Chris Robertshaw said: ’The situation is now so serious that Laurence Skelly [pictured] should step down. This is not a kneejerk reaction or anything personal but tourism is not in a good place and we need some form of political gesture.

’We need Council of Ministers to recognise these figures are a game changer, a watershed moment.’

Mr Robertshaw said the Steam Packet was ’choking’ the tourism sector, and pointed out the number of sea visitors fell from 161,000 in 2010 to 108,600 last year. ’It’s crashed,’ he said. ’The Steam Packet has turned its back on tourism. I’ve been a diehard critic of the user agreement and it is now shown to be a true impediment to the well-being of the Manx economy. It’s now time to seriously address this.’

He said that Jersey had its best tourism season since 2001 last year while Guernsey’s sea arrivals were up 15%. ’Tourism is a growth industry in the world. But somehow we have managed to go in the opposite direction,’ he said.

Mr Robertshaw said the release of the figures by the Department for Enterprise on Good Friday had been an attempt to ’tuck them away’.

He said that a limited increase in TT and Festival of Motorcycling visitors was encouraging but claimed the DfE had ’taken its eye off the ball for the rest of the year’.

He said that developments at Mount Murray, the new Premier Inn and the proposed Travelodge were welcome but these needed to be supported by ’a determination to succeed’, including a greater commitment to marketing the island.

And he added: ’We can still recover this. But we must have more ambition and not be so placid and so neutrally accepting of a slow contraction.’

Political member for tourism at the DfE Rob Callister said he has been left scratching his head over the figures as they appear to go against all the positive statistics received during the year.

He said the heritage railways had seen a combined 13% increase in passengers in 2017, with some 512,847 passenger journeys - up 65,949 on 2016. Some 45,000 visitors came for TT last year, an increase of 6.2% on the estimated number in 2016, while the Festival of Motorcycling had an estimated 16,218 visitors - a 2.9% increase on the previous year.

Mr Callister said the highest number of cruise ships visited last year. He said: ’The total marketing budget is around £445,000, which is far less that any equivalent marketing budget to our main UK competitors or even the Channel Islands.

’We are definitely punching well above our weight given the tight budget, but I acknowledge more needs to be achieved over the next 12 months. Hopefully we can work with the Cabinet Office to review the data and identify any areas of concern and shortcomings.’