Both Chamber president Andrew Eggleston and hospitality lead Holly Chandler said air transport to the island had become expensive and unpredictable, meaning potential tourists from the Bailiwick, Jersey and the UK were being put off.
This had led to even harsher troughs than normal in visitor numbers during the autumn and winter months.
Mrs Chandler said the decline had not been helped by the problems experienced by Aurigny in recent times.
She said the airline was between ‘a rock and a hard place’, as it was having to contend with rising prices globally.
But she said a couple travelling to the island would likely have to pay a fare of £330 each way on a flexible ticket in August to get to the island, and that was if they were lucky.
The issue was made worse by the fact that more than 50% of Alderney’s bed nights were provided by people who lived in Guernsey.
She wondered whether it would be possible for Aurigny to level out its top-tier prices to bring the most expensive fares down.
Even if people had been willing to pay the ticket prices, she said the unreliability of air links had led to fewer and fewer long weekend visits over the winter.
‘The next few weeks once we are into spring will tell us a lot about what the rest of the year will look like.
'Currently April is a desert in terms of bookings, people – especially families – can’t justify coming.’
Mr Eggleston said the lives of those who lived in Alderney revolved around air transport.
He said the general mood among those working in the tourism and hospitality industries was one of despondency, but insisted it was not all doom and gloom, with a potential direct ferry service between the island and Jersey one of a number of possibilities being examined in order to boost tourism.
‘A link with Jersey would be a totally brilliant idea, the numbers we’d get from people there, particularly to play golf on our course, would be tremendous.’
Both he and Mrs Chandler agreed Alderney needed to market itself better, particularly to businesses.
‘It’s not good, if we want to attract business to the island we need to get better at it. Visit Alderney is good for tourism but we need something similar for business,’ he said.
Mrs Chandler called for the Channel Islands to work better together, and market themselves as a unified destination.
‘The amount of international travellers we’d get coming from St Malo if we had better connectivity between the islands, I think there’s such a good opportunity there.’
For the time being, she said Alderney should focus on attracting double-income couples with no children, and older couples whose children no longer lived at home, to the island.
‘It’s a difficult situation, but it’s not like we are short on willingness to make it better. We’ve had good meetings with the States of Alderney and I certainly believe a positive outcome can be reached.’
