Massive jump in visitors from the north
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The Cayman Islands tourism industry has recorded an impressive increase in stayover visitors from Canada this year, according to figures released last week by Premier McKeeva Bush.
Mr. Bush said there had been a “dramatic 35.8 per cent increase” in visitors from Canada compared with the stayover numbers seen in the third quarter of 2010.
“Canada is looking very favourable,” Mr. Bush said.
Other staple Cayman Islands visitor markets, the US and Europe also showed substantial increases in stayover visitors so far in 2011; with the US going up 6.5 per cent and European visitors increasing by 5.7 per cent when compared with the same period of 2010.
Premier Bush, who is also the minister of tourism in Cayman, said the big increase in visitors from the great white north has him considering new travel routes for Cayman Airways.
“I’m hoping we’re able to get service out of Calgary in the west of Canada,” Mr. Bush said. “That’s where our tourism really began for those of us who are old enough to remember.”
Mr. Bush said old charter flights went from Vancouver to Cayman via Nevada, USA, in the 1960s.
Acting Director of Tourism Shomari Scott said the Cayman Islands had focused on colder climes in a recent promotional campaign called ‘Get Warm’. Ads generally featured people in winter landscapes with pictures shifting to Cayman’s beaches during the high season. Mr. Scott said there was even a contest on the website www.getwarm.ky where people could submit their “cold weather” photos and win a trip for the best (or worst) one.
Mr. Bush said Cayman’s goal was to get 300,000 air arrivals by the end of 2011.
The vast majority of Cayman’s stayover tourism, roughly 80 per cent, came from the US.
Cruise arrivals plummet
News has not been good for the cruise tourism industry in Cayman, which has declined by about 10 per cent this year when compared with 2010.
Mr. Bush said the figures, while “undoubtedly disturbing”, should not have been surprising. He said the drop off had been predicted as far back as the middle of the last decade.
“We understood from back then that if we as a country did not get our act together and facilitate the infrastructure to accommodate the new class of ships, that our cruise tourism would suffer drastically,” he said.
While Cayman generally targets an older visitor market, between ages 35 and 64 with an income of some US$150,000 per year from its stayover visitors, cruise shippers – who spend significantly less – are still an integral part of Cayman’s tourism product.
“Many ‘mom and pop’ operations have gravitated to the cruise industry,” he said. “We’re losing that kind of business.”
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And they will continue to decline unless Cayman gets their act together to BUILD NEW CRUISE SHIP DOCKS. Keep sticking your head in the sand and wait until Georgetown is a ghost town, then ask What Happened? Where did all the tourists go? If our government really cared about the small business owners of Cayman (restaurant owners, tourist shops, craft store, jewellery stores) then they will act fast to start building if they have any hopes of staying in business. By the way, once they’ve gone, it’ll be extremely difficult to lure them back. They sign 1 year contracts with different islands for services. Meanwhile, our government employees continue to collect their fat paycheques so what do they care about small business on the island?
If business is up from Canada, then they should be doing MORE advertising. Any time I travel to Canada or the US and tell people I’m from the Cayman Islands, most don’t have a clue where it is. The Calgary – Navada – Georgetown route looks like a good idea.
I always say annex us to canada and we would be in a better position now than we are under the uk. canadians longing to get away from the cold weather, would boost our tourism market and ensure we have a real democracy. right now, we don’t have much of a constitution, sorry to say
You’d also end up with a 40% tax rate on your personal income, one of the highest in the industrialised world.
Canada is a lovely country with a culture that is still somewhat like what Cayman used to be, as a part of the Commonwealth but you must realise…
Any country that the Cayman Islands might, theoretically, seek to become a part of if Britain is no longer an option, will have requirements and conditions that Cayman might not wish to meet…
And who would want the current baggage of the Cayman Islands anyway ?
@CaymanMermaid, if you think Canadians don’t hear about Cayman, take a poll of waitresses, bartenders, officer workers, accountants, i.e. workers in many local businesses, I did. I reached a point where I was just asking where in Canada are you from? Maybe they’re coming off the planes and getting employment…??? 🙂 Mr Bush maybe right about older tourists coming from Calgary, but in my opinion the only people the ads seem to be attracting are workers. While I appreciate the efforts of the tourism department, I guess can’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth, it’s clearly working for employment. lol
@Apprentice, do you you really think if we are ‘annexed’ to Canada, we’ll be better off? Wow, all the anti-colonial, discriminatory statements I hear about the British’, with whom we have a history and when you compare the increase in employment, status holder grants to Canadians in last 8 years versus the UK since their rule, I can’t imagine if we were ever annexed what would happen to locals and other nationalities here.
@fiery, who would want our baggage? at the influx of Canadians (since they’re being discussed),…. I would venture to say they seem very interested in taking on the ‘baggage’ and giving the British, Jamaicans, and Filipinos a run for that top position of ‘dominance’. Oh my, what a mess…. eh?