Promoting the Cayman Islands in Europe is not without its challenges, but exciting times are ahead.
Don McDougall is regional manager of Europe for the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism and he said business has grown in percentage terms from continental Europe, despite difficulties such as the United Kingdom government’s Air Passenger Duty, which adds a minimum of £150 to a Caribbean round trip.
A major part of his role is to increase the presence of the Cayman Islands in people’s minds.
“If you talk about unprompted awareness it’s something like 3 per cent, so we need to put Cayman on the map,” he said. “In contrast to other destinations we do not have hotels advertising or airlines promoting charters. Something like Atlantis, for example, helps Bahamas and Air Jamaica utilises internationally renowned names such as Usain Bolt and Shaggy.
“So we have a lot to do to get a share of voice. We raise awareness and use educational advertorials to show what Cayman stands for,” Mr. McDougall said.
He said something like the Cayman Cookout brought journalists from the UK, increasing coverage, noted that film crews were visiting Cayman for a fishing programme which put the islands on the map for angling.
The department also worked with third party brands such as a link with hairdressing chain Headmasters, an upscale product, which involved two to three months of Cayman Islands banners in that company’s outlets.
Special events
There are also special events such as the dive sales programme, in which the tourism department would sponsor a special evening including Cayman food and drink and present to the club reasons why the Cayman Islands should be their next group booking. And whilst the actual numbers of visitors may be 16 to 20, this has an incremental effect through word of mouth.
“It’s a different way of doing it, in Europe,” Mr. McDougall said.
“Regarding airlift, pricing is losing us custom, we believe. British Airways is doing well but it is a high cost route so they are in a difficult spot. But they are aware they need to do something and are making steps to do this. A merger with BMI may or may not free slots in the Caribbean.
“We are also working with Cayman Airways and looking at leveraging more business by possibly working with Continental Airlines; there is an Italian tradeshow in February at which we will be able to promote Cayman with product in Italian. It’s all about building contacts and relationships and distributing the product information.”
A modular online course for travel agents – the Cayman Islands Academy – is also an important training aspect. Through this relationships can be built and educating those tasked with selling holidays to the destination can be achieved, Mr. McDougall said.
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