Both the Go East initiative and berthing facilities will help toward lessening the large volumes of cruise passengers in George Town on any given day.
Minister for Tourism Charles Clifford stated this in answer to a question from the floor at Wednesday’s Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Wharf Restaurant. Although his speech was geared at environmental issues, concern was issued over the number of cruise versus stay-over tourists in Grand Cayman by Kim Lund of Remax Cayman Islands in a question and answer session.
‘What I am concerned about is the dichotomy between cruise ship tourism and stay-over tourism,’ said Mr. Lund, who added that record levels of cruise ship tourism are being reached with almost 2 million passengers a year, while stay-over tourism is below that of 1993.
‘Stay-over tourism is what drives our market. It’s what sells the condos and resorts that are going east and we have a couple, at least, of major resorts going east and we’re having a difficult time selling them because we don’t have the demand.
‘The stay-over tourism is our demand and I’m concerned because I don’t see travel agent familiarisation trips coming here like we had in the past and I don’t see the charters coming in here,’ he said.
Mr. Clifford said the government shares the concern raised in relation to cruise tourism. However, Go East and berthing facilities will help, he said.
‘The Go East initiative is going to provide the opportunity for us to better manage cruise tourism and essentially reduce some of the congestion around the Seven Mile Beach peninsula and central George Town by providing additional product offerings in the eastern districts, recognising, of course, that we have to manage that project carefully,’ he said.
With regard to the berthing facilities, he noted that on some days there are seven ships in port and other days there are very few ships, such as Monday or Friday.
‘These are issues being worked on with the cruise lines. There has been some limited success with that and some ships have been rescheduled,’ he said.
But what he predicts will happen once berthing facilities are here is that the ships will look more seriously at their schedules, because if there are five or more ships on any one day there will not be enough berthing for them all. In order to avoid having to use tenders, this should act as an incentive for some ships to try to reschedule for a Monday or Friday, he said.
‘The ultimate goal is for us to try to get down to four ships a day,’ he said.
While recognising the importance of stay-over tourism, we should not underestimate the value of cruise tourism, said the Minister. ‘Cruise tourism is pumping in more than $200 million per annum to the economy – and that’s a conservative figure,’ he said.
With regard to stay-over tourism airlift is a concern, Mr. Clifford said.
‘But we’ve seen the right signs,’ he added.
‘We’ve seen airlines like American and Delta Airlines changing their equipment from a 737-800 aircraft to a 757, which has a much larger capacity.
‘We’ve also seen US Airways bringing in as many as three flights on the weekends.’
Mr. Clifford said that Cayman Airways stands ready to assist and there will be additional opportunities this year for airlift, particularly out of the North East United States.
A robust programme is in place for familiarisation trips, the Minister stated, and he believes that return on investment to be very good.
Mr. Lund also asked if the runway is to be lengthened as part of the airport redevelopment plan.
There is a strategic development plan for the airport, which does involve an extension of the runway, but that extension is not included the first phase of redevelopment, said the Minister.
The reason for that, he said, is those operating out of the North East have indicated that the 7,000 feet of runway there already is sufficient for their operations.
Operators from Europe, he said, are not in a position to do a non-stop flight from Europe to Cayman because of a number of reasons. ‘What they do see attractive is a twin-drop operation such as British Airways does from London with the Bahamas and Cayman. From that point of view, they too don’t need more than 7,000 feet of runway.’
But there is flexibility in the grand-scale airport plan, so if the demand is there they will be in a position to lengthen the runway, Mr. Clifford said.
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