Bryan promises Barbados route will not be a loss-maker for Cayman

Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan has defended the choice of Barbados as the latest gateway for Cayman Airways, saying the route offers opportunities to attract more travellers from Europe.

Bryan said while there will always be criticism of the decisions that have been made with airlift, he believes the Barbados route will open doors to visitors who may not necessarily venture to Cayman because of the distance to get here.

And he insisted the deal was structured so that Cayman would not lose out on the route.

“Barbados is a well-known tourist destination from the European perspective that we don’t normally get,” he said.

“Those persons can now, with just one stop in Barbados, come to Cayman. So there’s a cross promotion for both islands – for those visitors who don’t choose Cayman or don’t choose Barbados, they can still get to the other country. So, it’s mutually beneficial for all,” Bryan said on the Cayman Compass talkshow ‘The Resh Hour’ on Wednesday.

Bryan said the Barbados government reached out to him about the new route because Cayman offered a connection to the US Midwest with the Cayman Airways flight to Los Angeles International Airport.

“There’s been a lot of excitement in Barbados for having the transition point to LA. The Barbados flight was not in isolation. When the Barbados government reached out to me as minister with the interest of Cayman Airways to have a route to Barbados, it was on the basis that Cayman Islands was the only Caribbean island to have direct flights to LA,” he said.

Expanding LA route

He said he asked the CAL board and the company to assess whether this was a profitable option, not only from a sales perspective but also through bringing visitors to the island.

“We’ve always wanted to expand the LA numbers because one flight a week didn’t give great opportunity for a stronger growth, even though we’re doing well with [that] flight… But it didn’t help a lot with the business traveller and people who wanted to visit for a shorter period of time,” he said.

This, Bryan said, is why the Barbados route, coupled with the additional Los Angeles flight, will offer more opportunities for travellers from the southern Caribbean to get to the US Midwest through a more direct route.

“If you were to take a flight directly from Barbados to Los Angeles, Cayman Airways is right in the path of it and with our direct service it worked well for them. What it helped [to do] is fill the gap for passengers who will continue on to Barbados with the extra passengers that we want for LA for the second route,” Bryan added.

The minister said all systems are in place for the route to succeed.

“There’s some protections that we’ve put in place to make sure that it’s a success from a Barbados perspective and, working with my fellow colleague in Barbados… we think it’s going to work and I can promise the people of the Cayman Islands that it will not be a loss to them.

“It will be a benefit in the sense of LA, as well as the local [Bajan] diaspora. It gives us access to some jurisdictions that we normally don’t get,” he said.

He said the concept of the route is diversification, and that is also part of the vision for the Panama flight which is linked to the Department of Tourism’s expansion into the South American market.

“Connectivity is the key and Barbados helps us with some connectivity and… we help Barbados with connectivity to the United States… [Cayman gets] 85% of our visitors from the United States. Barbados is the opposite. They get a lot of their business from Europe. So, it’s about diversification… We still have other markets to depend on,” he said.

COVID, he said has taught the world so much and “you don’t want to be putting all your eggs in one basket”.

Tickets for the Barbados route, which will launch on 18 Oct., went on sale on Friday, 1 Sept.

The minister said it was too early to say what sales have been like; however, he said there has been excitement among Cayman’s Bajan diaspora. There were 133 people from Barbados on work permits in Cayman in the most recent publicly available data from WORC.

Cayman woos Mia Mottley for Barbados route launch

As excitement builds for the launch of the Cayman Airways Barbados route, Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan says he is in talks to have Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley here for the inaugural October flight.

Bryan said he is hopeful she will attend the launch, adding that the Bajan diaspora in Cayman has asked him to “try really, really hard” to get her here.

“I had the pleasure of meeting her and [she is] an amazing person, a great regional leader. I’ve expressed our wishes here in Cayman to have her present for the inaugural flight. I’ve expressed that to the [Barbados tourism] minister,” Bryan said.