Cayman’s cruise sector urged to create new attractions

Tourism officials say Cayman is on track to meet its cruise passenger target of 1.2 million visitors by the end of 2023, but, if the jurisdiction is to maintain and grow those numbers, it must diversify and upsell its products and services.

Speaking at a press briefing on Friday 23 June, Department of Tourism Director Rosa Harris said, between January and May this year, 666,000 cruise passengers arrived on Cayman’s shores, which represents 73.8% of the tourism figures of 2019.

The press briefing came at the end of the annual Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association’s  Platinum Associate Member Advisory Council (PAMAC) conference, which was held in Cayman this week. The three-day conference was attended by 150 PAMAC members and gave local tourism operators a chance to engage with the FCCA’s decision-makers. The event was closed to the media.

While no specific resolutions and outcomes from the conference were announced at the press briefing, FCCA and DoT officials stressed there was a strong focus on re-thinking Cayman’s overall tourism products, with a view to develop new tourism attractions and experiences outside the popular tourist spots and leverage cruise passenger spending.

Funding ‘outside-the-box’ experiences

“From the government’s perspective, it is recognised that building new attractions and providing funding and access to funding for entrepreneurs to bring new business offerings to market is where our focus needs to be,” said Bryan.

Michele Paige, the FCCA’s CEO, stressed that the conference had allowed industry heads to “look within” and “work better for the people of Cayman”.

“How can we maximise what the passenger spends?” she asked.

“People will respond to what you offer them: sell up. Passengers are people. They respond to unique experiences; they are willing to spend more money for those experiences,” she advised.

To this end, Bryan said he is hopeful his fellow Cabinet ministers will approve a new government scheme to help create niche businesses throughout the industry.

“We estimate [total required funding of] between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000 and we’re hoping for a ballpark between $30,000 and $50,000 per applicant,” Bryan shared in response to Compass questions about how much would be allocated and available to prospective entrepreneurs.

“We’re not going to give funding to somebody to do another water-sports experience, unless it’s something totally different, or another dive, or another Stingray [City]. We’re talking about taking us outside-the-box, something brand new that will help pull people off the ships and help them spend,” he said

According to Bryan, the overall goal is to spread cruise tourists across Grand Cayman as evenly as possible but, for this to happen, key infrastructure upgrades such as the completion of the East-West Arterial will be needed.

The average disembarking cruise passenger will spend “about eight hours per day” on island he said, adding “And if you take two hours out of it travelling, that’s two hours worth of spending they’re not doing in our economy.”

Profit sharing with the cruise lines

But despite the rebounding numbers, the issue of profit share between the cruise lines and on-land service providers remains unresolved.

There is no legislation or policy which mandates profit share between the two entities, with both left to arrive at their own arrangements. As a result, many operators have complained that the cruise lines are taking the lion’s share of the profit, despite only serving as a point of sale.

During Friday’s press conference, Bryan stressed the importance of Caymanian operators working together to ensure there were no businesses undercutting each other.

There were no representatives from the tour operators present at the press briefing. However, there were several who attended the conference this week, including Cayman Islands Tourism Association President Tory Leacock and several other small business owners.