IN normal times, the recent Bank Holiday weather would have provided a bonanza for the tourist industry, with barely an unoccupied grain of sandy space in St Brelade’s Bay, an aromatic food festival in the most popular open show space in town, and not a car parking space the length of the coast from Gorey to St Catherine’s Breakwater.

But these aren’t normal times. Despite the undoubted joy of a grand sunny day out for all, the industry itself has taken a hit.

The latest figures from January to June show UK holidaymaker numbers down 13 per cent – about 16,000 fewer than for the same time last year. Those who calculate these things reckon that the declining visitor numbers have created a £10.5 million hole in the Island’s economy.

So what went wrong? It can’t all be down to the ‘publishing error’ in Tourism’s Island Accommodation Guide earlier this year which cast adrift many of our most prestigious establishments and deposited them in the middle of the sea.

We did have a thriving tourist industry because we had something special to offer and were canny enough to choose the right market to target our offer.

It wasn’t expressed in such crude terms, but it was effective. We have traditionally relied on sunshine figures that regularly pipped those of the UK. Booze and fags were cheaper, travel was easy, the language, laws and insurance all the same. It couldn’t be better – a recipe for perpetual growth and profit.

But we tried to copy downmarket resorts with mass appeal, and little else. One by one, we have seen the once-fashionable ‘golden (quarter) mile’ of Havre des Pas hotels close to make way for apartments.

There have undoubtedly been external as well as internal factors influencing the decline. No-one has been spared the effects of the credit crunch. There is less money to go round for holidays abroad. You could argue that the drop of 17 per cent overall this year is indeed better than the 30 per cent decline suffered by Mediterranean hot-spots, but we probably had less ‘fat’ in the first place.

Despite the States’ injection of £750,000 into the industry this year, there has continued to be a marked contraction in beds available – from just over 25,000 in 1979 to 11,000 in 2009.

Furthermore, there has been institutional complacency akin to the woes now afflicting our heritage ‘industry’. Because it was there, we just assumed it would go on for ever.

So how do we win the tourists back? It’s hard to believe that we could relinquish our cherished reputation as Britain’s South Sea Island without a fight, though it is probably unrealistic to rely on the recycled, post-Haut de la Garenne TV campaign, with its dreamy soft-focus castles, to do the trick. All that cycling along balmy country lanes – if you can get past the 4x4s.

I doubt that anybody told the carefree pedallers that apart from the southern coastal strip, everywhere else is uphill. And thanks to GST, there is little benefit left in the old VAT-free slogans.

Time, then, to concentrate on things which actually bring people here to spend money – Jersey Live, contemporary activities, Durrell, the War Tunnels, art galleries and theatre, rather than 16th-century granite stereotypes.

We can only hope that the ‘Europe without the euro’ recipe currently doing the rounds of the Sunday supplements will indeed hit an end-of-season spot.

We come so frequently under the spotlight from reviewers abroad that rather than try to project our cherished image ourselves, we might take heart from the approbation of others. After all, it is them we wish to attract.

This year’s Lonely Planet guide, for example, while describing us as ‘the brashest of the Channel Islands’, praises our sandy beaches and rugged cliffs with the tranquil lanes in between, along with the excellent museums which bring Jersey’s rich history to life. Definitely no hint of irony.

So are we still a fun place to be? The scenery hasn’t changed. If anything, the Island is more accessible than ever, despite a generally infuriating paucity of decent signage. Granted, we would hardly want to gain the reputation for unrestrained excess that has blighted such sun-spot resorts as Ibiza, the Greek Islands or even the city-break locations like Prague, now transformed into orgiastic stag-night revelry.

But some of our traditional attractions could really do with a brush-up. Even our brand-leading Battle of Flowers, with all its spectacle and precision and the undoubted dedication of its volunteer participants, has been criticised for a lack of spontaneity and excitement.

The icing on our cake has melted, along with some of the extras. Gone is the unique opportunity to watch talented crafting and decoration at Jersey Pottery.

What is there to draw visitors over the Elizabeth Castle causeway other than the boom of the noon-day gun? And though it’s there somewhere in Tourism’s marketing, institutionally we are moving away from the native Frenchness which initially provided our individual charm.

Of course, things can’t stay the same, but they should stay special. So not for once in the scheme of our Island life, one aspect depends on another. We just cannot afford to deprive visitors of attractions such as the Maritime Museum, heritage days at Hamptonne, even the Living Legend.

In the new world of negative currency fluctuations and environmental pressure on excessive travel, ‘staycations’ featuring comfort-zone recreation could become a new opportunity for capitalising on leisure, culture and, yes, that specialness which makes people want to come and spend their time – and money – with us.