Rough weather from Hurricane Wilma’s outer bands disrupted tourism this week.
There were no cruise ships all week, many flights on Wednesday were cancelled and early departures along with some cancellations from stay-over guests in what is a traditionally slow period for tourism in Grand Cayman, was experienced.
According to Director of Sales, Grand Cayman Marriott Beach Resort, Nadia Stradling, the hotel’s business was certainly affected by stormy conditions from the passage of Hurricane Wilma nearly 200 miles away.
‘Something like this will always affect us because flights were cancelled yesterday, stopping guests coming in,’ she said Thursday morning.
This season’s storms, Emily, Dennis and now Wilma, have cost the upscale Seven Mile Beach resort more than $100,000 in cancellations, said Ms Stradling.
The hotel was also dealing with numerous e-mails from concerned people overseas. Ms Stradling said there had been concerns that some of the international media had painted a picture of the hurricane affecting Grand Cayman more than it actually did.
‘It’s not what we need right now,’ she said. ‘Our pool deck got flooded, but there was no damage apart from that. We’re doing fine.’
She pointed out that some people had left with the approach of the storm and others were now wondering whether to leave with unsettled weather forecast in the wake of the storm. ‘It does affect business,’ she said.
On Wednesday Cayman Airways offered a limited service while all other airlines cancelled flights into and out of Grand Cayman. However, as of Thursday morning all flights were understood to have resumed service. Cayman Airways cancelled KX 4421 from Grand Cayman to/from Cayman Brac/Little Cayman and put on an extra flight between Grand Cayman and Kingston for Thursday but all flights were expected to run as normal Friday.
Cruise ships have also cancelled for the week because of rough seas.
At Comfort Suites, only a couple of people left prematurely before the storm and there had been only a handful of cancellations, said General Manager Brian Shiels. But with some local people booking in to stay during the storm the occupancy was up to 90 per cent. There had been a small number of calls from concerned booked guests from overseas.
At the Hyatt Beach Suites, where occupancy is about 40 per cent, no guests checked out prematurely, and some could not leave because of cancelled flights yesterday, said Interim Manager Diego Concha. Only two guests who had booked did not show up, probably because of cancelled flights Wednesday. There were some phone calls from concerned family members of guests.
The hotel experienced some high waves in the pool area, and Thursday the pool was to remain closed, but was scheduled to re-open Friday.
The Westin Casuarina Resort had minimal cancellations and had a small amount of groups arriving Thursday that had reconfirmed their bookings. A few corporate guests had departed early as their business had been interrupted by the weather, said General Manager Dan Szydlowski. Occupancy at the moment is on the high 30 per cent during this traditionally slow time.
Ms Kathy Jackson, Manager Public Relations, Department of Tourism said that the DoT works with its overseas PR agencies to continually update the status of the islands before, during and after a storm.
‘For instance we’ll take pictures of the beach afterwards, saying, ‘We’re great, come on down’, and it is equally important that hotels have made plans to contact guests with reservations to tell them this,’ she said Thursday morning.
However, she said it was difficult to tell at this stage what actual damage had been caused because of the storm. ‘If there was long-term damage we wouldn’t know today (Thursday),’ she said.
It was normal that those overseas, especially booked guests, would be concerned about potential damage here, she said. ‘That’s the business we’re in and that’s what will happen. People will be concerned and there is nothing we could do to make that not happen because people are so much more aware of hurricanes now.’
Ms Jackson said it was very important for resorts to get the word out to booked customers to let them know what the situation is here.
With regard to accommodation cancellations because of cancelled flights Ms Jackson said, ‘The airlines don’t want to cancel flights either, but they don’t want to do anything that is not safe. There could also continue to be cancellations, especially as the storm moves towards Florida.’
Meanwhile there was good news from tourist attraction Cayman Turtle Farm/Boatswain’s Beach that all turtles and facilities were unharmed, apart from the new parking lot on the seaside of the road which is being torn up by waves. The wall was also being eroded.
However, with the recent movement of all turtles and other facilities across the road, to the landside, they were spared any harm.
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