Thousands flock to Expo
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from October 2003.
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The exposition of leading businesses in the Cayman Islands attracted crowds in such record numbers that caused traffic build-ups outside the Lions Centre venue as people jostled to see what these companies had to offer while enjoying the entertainment on stage.
Chamber CEO Wil Pineau said that over the days 5,000 people signed cards showing their attendance and visits to the several booths. He estimated that there were at least another 2,000 persons attending who did not fill out the forms.
"The high number of people coming in made this by far the most attended event sponsored by us. The weather cooperated with us, and the advent of telecommunications along with the desire of the people to exhibit their products, all contributed to this success," Mr. Pineau said. Telecommunicationscompanies indeed appeared to have been the main attraction with Cable and Wireless along with two of the larger service providers about to enter the Cayman market, Digicel and AT&T attracting the largest crowds.
With its offer of a free cell phone in February for anyone who completes a simple form stating address and phone number AT&T took the attention spotlight as hordes of visitors queued up. from page 1 Digicel was not far behind as people rushed to get their names in the lot for draws for cellular camera phone giveaways. On every hour throughout the three days the names of lucky Digicel phone winners were announced.
Cable and Wireless touted its new GSM cell phone technology to attract a large number of visitors. During the opening ceremony Thursday night, Digicell's Chief Executive Officer, Seamus Lynch, said he looks forward to flooding the market with products and services beginning 1 February 2004.
"We're going to be an aggressive competitor and we won't apologise for it," he said, wishing all his competitors "the best." As he did last year, the Governor, Bruce Dinwiddy, encouraged Cayman consumers of all products and services to "avoid the temptation of shopping abroad" and to instead support the local economy. He pointed out that buying offshore for lower prices is only good in the short term, and appealed to them to buy locally to help the Cayman economy.
