Opposition leader Roy McTaggart says a 16% drop in stayover visitors in Cayman, compared to 2019, has led to a $90 million reduction in money spent locally by tourists.
McTaggart, in a statement issued in response to an announcement by Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan earlier this week about government’s higher-than-anticipated accommodation tax revenues, said it was concerning that there had been 45,000 fewer stayover tourists in Cayman in the first six months of this year than the same period in 2019.
Despite fewer tourists on island, government collected $28.8 million in accommodation taxes and fees in the first six months of 2023, which was $3 million more than projected for the entire year. The increase was driven by hikes in hotel and other accommodation prices, estimated to be about 20% higher than in 2019, the last full year of tourism before COVID.
“A loss of 45,000 visitors then amounts to a staggering $90 million fewer tourism dollars spent in the Cayman Islands economy in the first half of 2023 compared with the 2019 half-year. This is $90 million lost to local tourism businesses, and wages lost to Caymanians working in the tourism industry,” McTaggart said.
He added that, coupled with a decline in cruise visitors, “the impact on Caymanians with tourism businesses and Caymanians working in the industry is significant”.
Bryan, in his statement this week, said his ministry had projected that by June this year, numbers would stand at about 70% of the 502,739 stayover guests in 2019, so 84% of 2019’s figure was higher than expected.
Quoting data from consultancy firm Tourism Analytics, McTaggart noted that Jamaica, Anguilla, Grenada, Aruba, Cancun, Dominican Republic, the US Virgin Islands, and San Juan had exceed their year-to-date 2019 tourist air arrivals.
He added that though stayover numbers for the Bahamas and Barbados were down compared to 2019, they were higher than Cayman’s figures.
“The Cayman Islands languishes in 16th place out of 18 in the league table of performance this year compared to 2019,” McTaggart said. “Only Trinidad and Cuba are doing worse than Cayman.”
Calling for a “more cohesive strategy”, he urged Bryan and the PACT government to “address this situation urgently and not gloss over the issue with throw-away statements such as ‘Tourism performance over the first half of the year has surpassed expectations and underscores the significant rebound in our tourism industry.’”
He added, “Our tourism performance may have surpassed Minister Bryan’s expectations, but we are lagging well behind many in the region. The government might be celebrating its revenues, but hard-pressed Caymanians in the tourism sector are paying the cost.”
Read the Opposition’s statement here.
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Costs have risen for tourists too and with the increase in crime many are looking for safer and cheaper options closer to home.
Let’s address the real elephant in the room as well…..my wife and I with our children visited 4 times a year pre covid until Cayman completely shut down. During the ridiculous shut down we discovered other areas in Florida and the Bahamas to visit and have fallen in love with our new areas and have not been back to Cayman since. That is an actual reality of decisions that were made to continually push the opening back and back.
Not enough mid=priced hotels on the beach