Tourism leaders look to high season amid global economic uncertainty

Local tourism leaders say they are looking to brighter days ahead, as they ramp up efforts to get Cayman bookings back on track to make the most of some much needed tourist spend, now that Cayman’s COVID travel restrictions are a thing of the past.

Jim Mauer, Vice President and Managing Director at The Westin, said government’s announcement on 19 Aug., ending vaccination requirements and the need for Travel Cayman approvals, from 24 Aug., came as a surprise – but one the industry had been hoping would happen a lot sooner.

He told the Cayman Compass in a telephone interview on 23 Aug., the focus is on increasing reservations.

“We’re excited to see this happen in the third quarter and start to sell everything in the booking window to get ready for ’23, because that’s really where we’ll see that impact. We would love to see it towards the end of the year, but people have already made plans for vacation and travel and that’s already been committed to [by] a lot of people,” he explained.

Mauer said already the resort has seen an increase in its group bookings; he said the vaccination requirement had been a big hurdle to incentive group travel as some people in the group had been inoculated and others not.

“We’re getting more engagement than we expected and we have seen a push… it’s not immediate, but it will pay dividends as we move into 2023 and into the fourth quarter,” he added.

‘Late start in the race’

Cayman Islands Tourism Association president Marc Langevin says the lifting of COVID restrictions came with an “overall a sense of celebration” and “relief”, that after two years of battling for survival, it is good to get back to business.

“We finally have a clear path and are able to get back in the game and compete for our business. However, due to the delay in the announcement, we had a late start in the race and face some external hurdles, such as flight reduction, global inflation effects and a looming economic crisis,” Langevin said in an interview on 23 Aug.

He stressed it’s time to get moving on getting the word out and the next three months will need collaborative efforts to get Cayman’s tourism industry back to full strength.

“As we are looking at the data, our pace for Q1 for booking is lagging 30-40% and we have a catch up to do, to get back to our normal booking pace,” he added.

He emphasised that there was still “so much at stake”, particularly for “thousands of tourism workers who deserve to finally regain their livelihood”.

“We understand the difficulty for our government to reach consensus on such a difficult decision, we certainly appreciate the passionate advocacy of the members of the PACT who fought for it,” Langevin said.

‘Most challenging time’ since Ivan

While many local hotels and holiday lets have seen tourists return incrementally with the phased relaxing of restrictions, the announcement last week is expected to trigger a greater influx of stayover visitors – something James Leavitt, General Manager at Grand Cayman Villas and Condos, has been waiting for.

“We did get some notice it was coming, but as you well know, we have been disappointed many times with promised easing that didn’t come through. The condo & villa sector is very encouraged and appreciative that the PACT Government put this behind us all. We can focus on getting everyone back to work and promoting the destination for 2023,” he said in an emailed comment.

Grand Cayman Villas and Condos books for 90 villas and about 150 condos, he said.

The most recent announcement, he said, has not caused a spike in large villa inquiries or bookings yet “because most of the larger families with 12 or more people had to make their winter and Spring Break decisions already and had to cross Cayman off the list for the third year in a row”.

“On the bright side, we have seen inquiries for smaller families remain strong for both condos and villas for the winter and spring,” he added.

Markus Mueri, CITA treasurer and restaurant director, says the last two years have been the most challenging times for the hospitality and watersports industry since Hurricane Ivan, but “once again, our solid business industry was able to survive with few casualties.”

“We will again be the leader of the Caribbean in high-end tourism. Cayman defines the highest standards regionally and globally, when it comes to quality,” he said.

Cost-of-living jeopardises sector’s revival

Mueri said, as the industry looks ahead, one of the biggest challenges is cost-of-living.

“The increase of all goods, food and beverage related, is directly making our destination more expensive. [For] employees, the condo rental market is incredible high-priced and there aren’t many condos available. This will cause issues,” he said.

However, there is hope for tourism workers and businesses, he added.