Tourism splashed $30K on hotels and flights to send support to troubled UK office

The Department of Tourism racked up more than $30,000 in hotel and air fare to send one of its senior officials to London to provide ‘management support’ to the UK office amid controversy over its sports sponsorship strategy.

Official travel expense reports for the department indicate that a senior Cayman based official was initially sent to London between 5 Feb. and 11 March to assist at the department’s UK office.

He returned to the UK capital again on 17 March until 15 April, and for a third time between 12 and 19 of May.

The expense reports indicate that the department spent a total of $7,356 on three return flights to the UK for the individual, and $22,830 in hotel bills for the trips – around $330 a night for the 69 days.

The total cost of the support to the London office from that employee, excluding his salary, was $437 a day.

CIDOT sports sponsorship scandal

• Compass Investigation: Sun, sea and suspect sponsorships
• Tourism officials defend sports sponsorship strategy
• Tourism officials ordered to hand over sponsorship records to Compass
• Cayman’s UK tourism chief leaves role; officials silent over suspect sponsorships
• Unredacted freedom of information records
• Tourism splashed $30K on hotels and flights to send support to troubled London office

A Ministry of Tourism spokesperson said the support had been a necessary part of its response to potential conflict of interest involving a senior London-based staff member, revealed in the initial report by the Compass on the sports sponsorship saga published on 2 Feb.

“CIDOT (Cayman Islands Department of Tourism) regards transparency and accountability in the workplace as being vitally important.

“When the potential for conflict of interest was identified, action was swiftly taken and senior leadership from the Grand Cayman Head Office was assigned to the CIDOT UK office to maintain business continuity.”

The Compass reporting and documents released under a Freedom of Information request, showed UK and Europe regional director Adrian White was a player for an amateur team receiving around $10,000 a year in sponsorship from the DoT.

New unredacted contracts provided to the Compass last week show White’s signature on the agreement between DoT and the Old Cranleighans amateur hockey team.

At the time of the Compass story in February, the DoT said it took the perception of conflicts of interest seriously and would investigate. Further details about its response were provided and are detailed in our story here.

The travel expenses record indicates that a Cayman based employee, who we are not naming, was sent to the UK three days after the first story was published and spent the bulk of March and April in London.

Responding to Compass questions this week, the ministry spokesperson said the trip and the support provided had enabled the UK office to progress its European tourism recovery strategy at a critical time.

“This ensured that the Cayman Islands European Marketing and PR strategy was fully executed and delivered on-time,” they said.

“This translated into tangible results, with Ireland and the UK being the first and third fastest of our major source markets to recover to pre-pandemic levels for the period between January and September of this year – attaining 95% and 88% of 2019 visitation levels respectively.”

The spokesperson said all travel expenses for its senior leadership team are published and and publicly available on the DoT website per the Cayman Islands government’s Official Travel Policy. The travel expense reports can be accessed here.