The number of cruise ship passengers arriving in the Cayman Islands has hit its lowest level in nearly three years.
In July, 25 cruise ships carrying roughly 78,000 visitors reached the shores of Grand Cayman, the fewest number of vessels and total passengers to call on the Cayman Islands since September 2008, according to figures released by the Port Authority of the Cayman Islands.
The figures for this July represent a near 33 per cent decline compared with the more than 115,000 passengers who visited by ship during the same month last year. The most recent figures released by the government authority also witnessed the first time since 2005 that the month of July saw fewer than 100,000 passengers arrive by cruise ship.
Carnival Cruises accounted for 22 of the total vessel visits in July 2011, with Royal Caribbean adding two and Tropicana Cruises one, said Joseph Woods, manager of cruise operations and security for the Port Authority.
Mr. Woods said the figures from the previous July, showing 35 vessel calls and 115,471 passengers, also included visits by Princess and Celebrity cruise lines, both of which made no such calls this July. He also said Royal Caribbean had three ships calling on Grand Cayman the same time last year, while only one made similar rounds this year. Carnival employed the same number of ships in the region both years – eight.
The decline to 25 vessel calls and 77,735 passengers this July resulted in the worst showing since 24 ships carrying 69,372 passengers visited in September 2008.
“Carnival and Royal Caribbean have always been the year round lines, with the others mainly in the winter season,” Mr. Woods said. “What we are experiencing is a deployment issue that is a matter entirely in the control of the cruise lines. Next year improves as Disney will be deploying their new ship, Disney Fantasy, on our route all through the summer.”
The second most visited destination in the Caribbean by cruise ship passengers as recently as 2006, the Cayman Islands long have seen seasonal fluctuations in the number of visitors with summer months routinely welcoming lighter loads. But recent years have seen the number of ships steadily decrease as cruise lines have chosen to deploy ships overseas in fledgling international markets, as well as along the traditional itineraries of the Eastern Caribbean.
The Cayman Islands must contend with its status as the only major cruise port in the Caribbean with no pier infrastructure. George Town is a tendering port and notwithstanding the five-year-old Royal Watler terminal in George Town the facilities and services are inadequate to cater to cruise ships accommodating several thousand passengers, especially on peak days, according to a revised national tourism management plan.
Those concerns have only grown as cruise lines move to stock their fleets with larger ships.
The downturn this year, now in its fourth consecutive month, shouldn’t have come as a surprise to local businesses as the cruise lines serving the Cayman Islands a year ago announced a 26 per cent reduction in the number of scheduled visits for 2011. But the economic impact of those reductions has been magnified as some of the ships no longer calling on Grand Cayman were the vessels often carrying a wealthier passenger clientele offering more disposable income.
Meanwhile, plans to build new berthing facilities in Grand Cayman have been discussed for years, but nothing has materialised.
“The drop in cruise passenger arrivals, while regrettable, should not be surprising to anyone as our ability to influence cruise passenger travel choices is limited without the appropriate physical development,” Premier McKeeva Bush said last month. “To address the situation, I continue to have discussions with the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association to ensure that the number of cruise ships visiting the Cayman Islands is maintained at a level as best as possible until our new port facilities are built and we are able to welcome the new mega class of ships.”
Overall, the Caribbean continues to dominate as the largest destination market for cruising worldwide, representing 41 per cent of industry capacity for all itineraries in 2010, according to the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association.
In recent years, however, the eastern and southern portions of the Caribbean have been gaining market share, mostly at the expense of its neighbours in the Bahamas and the western Caribbean, including the Cayman Islands.
The typical cruise ship carrying 2,550 passengers and 480 crew members conservatively generates roughly US$286,000 in passenger and crew expenditures during a single port of call visit, according to a 2009 economic impact study conducted by Business Research & Economic Advisors.
In 2008, the most recent year for which statistics are provided, annual expenditures by cruise ship visitors to the Cayman Islands totalled an estimated CI$118 million, according to the Department of Tourism.
“The Cayman Islands needs to pursue tourism because, first, this is where it’s natural comparative advantage lies, and, second, there are few alternative sectors for the country,” according to the revised national tourism management plan. “Tourism supports the development of vital infrastructure, which is good for all business and helps support other economic activities.”
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What do you expect when crime is out of control, prices are through the roof and nothing new to see? Market saturating has sunk in. Cayman is not what it used to be and touris know it. Howmany times do you want to see the Turtle Farm? Get real.
How much further do the numbers have to dwindle before Bush decides to start on the cruise ship facilities? Is he waiting til NO CRUISE SHIP PASSENGERS are the reality? Then will he scratch his head and say Oh, my, what do you suppose we should do? Cayman is 20 years behind in terms of cruise ship facilities — our governments are too arrogant to realize there is a problem, instead thinking all is well and fine and isn’t Cayman a wonderful place. Well, I tell you, once we lose these cruise ships it will not be so easy to lure them back. They will have new contracts and new, easily accessible ports of call that they won’t be so eager to abandon to return to Cayman. CUBA is on the cusp of being the new destination. So even if they started our new cruise ship port TODAY — it’ll take another year or two to finish, and by then the ships will be long gone. And so will all the stores on our harbour that relied on the cruise ship passengers to keep them afloat. So then what will we have to offer cruise ship passengers? Nothing. Well, McKeeva Bush, time to stop having your discussions with the Florida Cruise Association and start building. Discussions are not the solution — building a new cruise ship docking facility are. Too bad they booted Dart out — would have been almost finished by now if they had the contract. Our loss. Feel sorry for the stores downtown — and all the resultant loss of business from people who stopped in on a cruise and decided to return at a later date for a week.
Perhaps the crime statistics are causing some of this but here in the US the economy is really influencing peoples decisions not to travel abroad. There is uncertainty here with regards to how our Govt will resolve the debt crisis, social security funding, unemployment etc. I read our postal service needs 5B to survive? US tax payers may have to bail them out? We are in shambles right now due to Wall Street greed of the past the cost of war(s). At least your Govt had a surplus in revenues. Many people I know who usually go to Hawaii are doing things like camping. We’re worried and it shows.
While I’m sure that a lot of the comments are valid ones, I also think that you should not underestimate the damage due to the reputation you’ve developed as being bigoted and hostile to gay (and increasingly gay-friendly) passengers (not to mention crew, cruise staff, and entertainers). People going on vacation have a wide choice of destinations, and it’s understandable that they would prefer to visit and spend their money (especially in today’s difficult economy) in places where they know they will feel comfortable and genuinely welcome.
Spending a lot of money on capital improvements is fine, but some of the changes that need to be made there to make passengers more interested in visiting the Cayman Islands again (or even for the first time) would cost almost nothing.