Opposition questions choice of tourism promos
(CNS): Opposition Leader Roy McTaggart (GTE) questioned government last week about two odd choices the Department of Tourism had made to promote the Cayman Islands: a deal with Portsmouth Football Club in the UK and another deal with a designer handbag company in the US. Since Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan was away at an overseas conference, the questions were answered by Dwayne Seymour (BTW), who told McTaggart that no business cases were done in relation to either deal.
Seymour, in his role as parliamentary secretary, told the opposition leader that a business case was not completed for the Portsmouth FC sponsorship deal but the cost was about £90,000 (around CI$91,000 based on the latest exchange rate). In return, throughout the three-year deal Cayman would get exposure at the club’s games from television and social media.
However, the club is a first division rather than premiership team, and with the season coming to a close soon, Portsmouth is currently sitting just above mid-table. Part of the deal includes a friendly match with the Cayman Islands national team during the off-season and the club is expected to attract fans from the small English seaside town in Hampshire, home to around 220,000 people, for that game.
Meanwhile, the one-year deal with Laudi Vidni included a payment of US$37,500 to the leather bag maker. Seymour said that Cayman is expected to get a “high level of awareness and marketing support”, which included supported messaging and a new channel for premium VIP gifts. He said it also supported positioning the Cayman Islands as a lifestyle destination with a focus on fashion and luxury.
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
This is what our $91K got us – on a sponsors page 2 clicks down from their main webpage
World-renowned for its idyllic beaches, the Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean made up of the islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman – each of which offer unique bucket list experiences and stunning scenery.
Worth every penny.
Kenny and Rosa better start thinking about how they are going to get people to come to Cayman on holiday with sky high airfares. Friend looking at airfares NYC to Salt Lake for Christmas ski vacation $2,000 per person and he is a family of five. So, $10K before they set foot off the plane. So, if airfare to Cayman is even remotely close and lodging is at a Christmas premium. Question, who’s going to come 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
Oops, I forgot the handbags are a point of competitive difference – LOL
Rubbish, checked Expedia…half that price
Milwall would have been a better option given the current state of Cayman.
How much will it cost over time to repair the damage these loser decisions and associations make to our own brand? #selfrelegating
Would be interested to read about the decision making process behind this complete waste of money and who green-lighted it.
Rosa Harris and Kenny Bryan are obviously eager to take credit for what they believe is Prestige Workdwide. It’s dangerous to wake people up when they are sleepwalking. Sofa cushions are in the oven.
We need an Anti Stupidity Commission as well as an Anti Corruption Commission. Because I am struggling to believe that these inexplicable choices could be a product of corruption given the low values involved, but it is a bit difficult to envisage how anyone with half a brain thought either were a good idea.
It’s unclear if the cost is $100k total, or per year for three years. We should worry it’s the later until that’s cleared up. $1 is too much.
Hanlon’s Razor.
PPM has lost all respect. After the cruise ship dock failing and then acting like school yard bullies and now all this whining on the side lines. Bunch of sore losers.
Not to say I think PACT is completely useless but they are.
We really need new (competent) blood in politics.
Competence would require new candidacy rules that disqualify the old guard (updating laws), and a big overhaul of civil service standard operating procedures from the DG down. No Caymanians want to lead these changes. Voters could organize and petition for them…
The DG told public officers yesterday that they need to thank the MPs for the salary increases. Because of course we do not have separation of powers. Was Bernie not sanctioned for interfering in Personnel matters?
If you want competent and uncorrupt people in politics you better widen the pool of eligible candidates.
The PPM are the opposition now and are doing their job not sure you understand how our Parliament works, they didn’t get the job to sit silently and ignore crap like this
That’s what I don’t get with all this Opposition hate. That’s what they’re there for, checks and balances, challenges and scrutiny.
Laudi Vidni has 4400 followers on Instagram. They could given the funds to local influencers for marketing campaigns and received more exposure.
No kidding. At the DoT brain trust, a 100% increase in exposure is going from 8 internal staff views to 16 on their weird YouTube content.
Yeh…never heard of that brand.
Im more concerned about which minister supports portsmouth. $hit team.
Only a matter of time now before Monaco sponsor Partick Thistle 😉
The Maryhill Magyurs!
You forget that Alden sponsored some Monaco charities to get close to the Prince.
Portsmouth? A festering sore of a town with a disproportionate concentration of the most basic Brexit types, the sort that are cheering on Boris’s flights to Rwanda. No real prospect of benefitting Cayman pitching to that demographic. Even in League One, England’s third tier, there are clearly better choices. Whoever signed off on this was clueless.
Nail on head.
Couldn’t agree more. I can absolutely guarantee that no one who would ever go to a Portsmouth game would ever be visiting the Cayman Islands. Madness
Agree about Portsmouth FC. This sounds very suspect to me. On the Rwanda point – agree with the Prime Minister on this one. Absolutely no need for ‘refugees’ leaving mainland Europe to ‘chose’ to come to the UK. A deterrent message needs to be sent to those that choose to make the perilous journey to the UK (in preference to staying in France) and those that are profiteering by trafficking them!
Idiot
Someone from Portsmouth, I presume. Has the language and grammar skills representative of the city.
League One teams that would be a better choice: Bristol Rovers, Cambridge United, Charlton Athletic, Cheltenham Town, Exeter City, Milton Keynes Dons, Oxford United, Wycombe Wanderers.
yet they cant support any local swimmers because we dont have an olympic pool. yet they cant sponsor our own football team. lol what about that supporting local BS they push all the time? what about the local designers? lol jokes
Good points, but missing a vital perspective. This is their attempt to bring in international business (very poorly!), so local isn’t the way forward.
totally understand what the aim is here, just saying that there are a lot that bring eyes to cayman if they invest in people like our swimmers in the olympics or anyone that thrives to uplift not only themselves but what we can do or bring to the table as locals.
Understood what the attempt is here but there’s things that’s been forgotten about here for much too long to be dishing the way they are attempting to right now.
Who is to say that there isnt a local designer who makes bags that, with proper backing, can “blow up” as well and make waves financially and in popularity. (just an example)
Yeah, like preppy staple Bermuda bags in the 1980s. Our knuckleheads lack sense.
Or diving. We don’t even have a diving board.
and never will
When are we going to formally disband the obstructive Taliban-like religious policing agency Cayman Music & Entertainment Association (CMEA)? If they aren’t going to help Caymanian artists to perform, or generate public joy, then who do they serve? Who is even in charge of it? Do they even know?!? The level of institutionalized ineptitude, even on easy stuff…
Lol. Portsmouth. I’m going to guess no one involved in this decision has ever been.
You would be surprised which Tourism Minister has links to that particular location
Are you serious?
Well, given we only have one choosing which one would hardly be difficult! But I find the suggestion surprising alright. So go spill – what’s the connection?
5 x Porsche Caymans , 10,000 Honda Fits & Civics.
Portsmouth FC ? You have to be kidding. Does Government realize that this team is in league 1 of the English Premier league ( ie tier 3) with a ground that holds less than 20k supporters which they never fill. The ground & team are decrepit – why on earth would the CI Government have anything whatsoever to do with this low ranking team that no one has ever heard of? I really would love to know what ( or who) is behind this utter disaster ? Unbelieveable.
Portsmouth FC is very famous. Does Jimmy Dickinson still play for them?
One for the auditor general to look into, I think
AG finds issue. CIG tells AG there is nothing to see here and that the AG does not understand “our ways”. AG leaves job.
Think that’s already set in stone after she threw a rock at Eric Bush, Alden and the Governors involvement in the Dubai Expo and overseas offices scandal.
Does she play football?
Does Portsmouth?
It’s simply ridiculous.
Sounds like these were dodgy indulgences for a husband and wife. Free tickets for the football and free bags for the wife.
Oops! Mind yourself.
No one with any semblance of taste would want one of those bags
Or to watch Portsmouth FC
another glorious day for the civil service…..zzzz
let keep those pay increases coming!
Is this a joke? Look at the other sponsors… A local family run construction company, an energy reseller, a bookies and a local waste management company… and The Cayman Islands!. Embarrassing.
Ignorance is bliss. As a dear headmaster told us once, “small things amuses small minds”.Whoever told them the optics would be of any benefit to our beloved Isles Cayman. Sure was not a 2 way street.
Great promo would be to clean up all the garbage at Public Beach. I will not go there with my children anymore. How hard can it be to keep it clean when it is your number one asset.
This would be like Guernsey, or Jersey, sponsoring a soccer club in LaCieba Honduras, to stick it to Cayman. #Caymankind
At last, a question about the captivating, alluring, mystical, enchanting, handbag promotion.
Elect stupid people, win stupid prizes.
Nobody elected the bad idea machine that is Rosa Harris.
I am sure that was not Rosa Harris’s idea. Obviously you don’t know how difficult it is to discuss or try to change an idea that is stuck in these ministers heads. It is their way or the highway. Rosa is smarter than that.
Obviously you don’t know Rosa or any of her other bad ideas. Another Moses great picks.
It’s even worse: Portsmouth, a port town of 235,000, might have made sense if we were called Guernsey or Jersey, as the service ferry to those other BOTs departs from there. DoT must have copied/stole this marketing gimmick from one of their Tourism playbooks, without contextualising for the Cayman Islands. Someone should be fired for this. We don’t want, and aren’t gong to get, any tourists from Portsmouth.
Guernsey & Jersey are not BOT’s
I doubt even 1 tourist comes to Cayman as a result of this nonsense.
I am from Portsmouth and just landed in Cayman; what is there to do here?
Perhaps you and the minister can arrange a fashion show. you with your football and he with his handbag! That should be a hoot!
Pact are made up of the most vile ministers who flaunt their ineptness in our faces and use Sandra Hill of CMR to spread their “news”. No real interviews given to journalists who ask tough questions and make them answer to the public. They are a bunch of cowards. Never has this happened in Cayman. This government has no dignity, zero morals and even less sense. Thought I’d never say this but Kenneth albeit a convict is the best they’ve got and is the only minister accomplishing anything but he’s got a lot of private sector interests assisting with that.
No real interviews given to journalists who ask tough questions and make them answer to the public. They are a bunch of cowards. Never has this happened in Cayman.
Never? You have a short memory my friend. Remember how the press conferences tailed off then ended abruptly with the PPM once they started getting asked difficult questions? Or how Dwayne threatened a lady journalist?
Those press conferences were becoming redundant in the end. They still allowed a variety of journalists to ask questions, hence the question by Wendy…still none from PACT.
I retract my thumb. What exactly has Kenny achieved?
He’s achieved the feat of a criminal conviction, somehow followed by a very well paid position that will set him up for life.
who are portsmouth?….the 4th or 5th best team on the south coast currently knocking around in the the english third tier?…
laughable
Who are Portsmouth? The happy recipients of $90K of Cayman taxpayers money, thats who.
What about Manchester United? With the season they had, they can’t be asking too much for sponsorship. Also, I believe the Cayman National Team have a better chance of beating Man U than Portsmouth.
almost as bad as ‘caymankind’….
Clueless Ministers come and go, but the common denominator with this bewildering Tourism exercise and past distasteful and expensive folly, like the doomed SpongeBob alliance, and GOT dragon motive, is that the career useless at DoT are not qualified for the roles they’ve been promoted into. There is no SWOT analysis applied, or competing thought in the room on any exercise because they don’t have achieve-able metrics in mind, reasonable targets set, constraints on spending, or face any risk of termination. We should expect more bad ideas until the civil service gets a comprehensive management consulting shake up.
No chance. Miller Shaw anyone?
New phone, who dis?
“the Cayman Islands as a lifestyle destination with a focus on fashion and luxury”? The premier warns of more disruption, the cost of living going beyond the average persons means. Government handing out subsidies. Where precisely is the lifestyle of fashion and luxury?
He and his kin must be living the lifestyle of fashion and luxury! The rest of us who pay CINICO along with the usual expenses to just live don’t have access to deep pockets and he needs to remember that. What is their problem anyway?
Apparently He spouts out the first bit of rubbish that comes to hid mind.
The Ritz at any gala night out on the calendar. Its got the the luxury & fashion covered well , the lifestyle side is a touch lacking.
To be consistent with the punishment of unlawful actions by Minister Bernie Bush the question now is will Minister Kenneth Bryan’s violation of Public Mamagement and Finance Law (PMFL), Framework For Fiscal responsibility (FFR), Procurement Law. Ministerial Code of Conduct, etc. result in his suspension from Ministerial work and the loss of the Tourism Ministerial Portfolio?
The electors elected persons with whom Premier Panton formed a Government to deliver us from the very tainted UDP / PPM Unity Government.
One by one we see the potential for some MPs in the PACT Government and senior civil servants to continue in the same sell out disastrous path of the UDP / PPM Unity Government.
This latest mess begs the question – Are there any REAL Good Governance politicians and civil servants in the Cayman Islands?
What a Hot Mess sa!
Ya ever seen a ting like dat?
Yes, mi chile, all de time, dem all de same, it too common.
Where is the violation of PMFL? Civil Servants make payments, not elected officials.
No business case conducted for any of these expenses, or procurement process. Is it KYD$100k total for three years or per year for 3 years? What is our out clause? Do the people spending our money even know? Where is this public contract published?
Waiting for the PACT bots to somehow blame Eric for this. When really it is all based on their incompetence. All of it, since they’ve been elected. What a bunch of morons. The only thing they’ve been decent at doing is finding ways to make the public purse pay for the welfare state they have created.
Yeah, at US$150k way below Eric’s level. Amateur hour. His little adventures always involve 7 figures.
Never argue with STUPID PEOPLE,
They will drag you down to their level
and then beat you with experience.
Cheltenham Town, another League One club, is the only club in the EFL in which a Caymanian has a significant ownership share.
So why would Government particularly choose Portsmouth, which also happens to be in direct competition with a Caymanian-owned club?
Portsmouth seem a very odd decision period let alone the quality of the advertisements.
Which football club has significant Caymanian ownership? Did not know about this. Very interesting.
He just told you for god’s sake.
It’s well-known on the island.
FYI Cheltenham beat and drew with Portsmouth last season, home and away.
The real iquestions are ” why did the minister picked Portsmouth? What connections he has with Portsmouth? Are these hare-brained decision made in Cabinet or did he just decided to give these people our money on his own” He should be forced to return every penny back to the Treasury ASAP?
About the handbags- right now I cannot wrap my head around this one! I guess this is what happens when ego devours reason and thought process.
#leggewasright
Before you start any promotions, lift all Covid restrictions firstly and return normalcy . How can you be promoting or want to promote Cayman with these stupid covid rules, which no longer has any bearings.
A full bag of penalty shootouts, talk about money going down the drain🙄duh duh.
You talking about the lifestyle destination with a focus on fashion and luxury hand bags? The Premier can help the company increase their sales by buying one for each of us ladies between the ages of 9-99. My favourite is green. Let us know on WhatsApp as soon as they arrive in the colony please.
I know what you could have done with that money: Pay for a vet on the Brac, as DOA doesn’t think the animals here deserve anything and won’t do a thing toward providing them with proper health care.
Cull the cats first.
What a moronic response. That would be the same as saying we need to suspend all health care to the general population until we’ve solved the homeless/indigency problem.
The issue is that pets on the Brac need veterinary care. We are citizens of the Cayman Islands and deserve the same services provided on Grand. The point is that there are needed ways to spend money rather than throw it away on “designer” bags.
BTW, it’s my understanding the cat cull is going to happen, as it’s a problem that needs to be dealt with — just like the lack of full-time veterinary care.
Did we ever get something from Porsche….the Porsche Cayman has been well received????
Not by anyone that owns one, at least here in Cayman. Oh the irony.
There’s at least 5 of them on the island that i can think of off the top of my head.
Named after the nimble lizard, not the island territory.
The last government sponsored London Irish Rugby Club. Portsmouth FC get far bigger crowds and publicity that London Irish who don’t even have their own ground! How much did they pay them I wonder?
Pack your bag and have a ball!
WTF
Corruption is endemic: WTF You are right, you just cannot make this up.
The proud 3rd division Pompey and a leather goods company LOL
Neither mention Cayman on their websites “latest news” LOL
The “high level awareness” that is being generated is a reputation for Cayman that “fools and their money are easily parted”.
I’ve just been informed that the Antiques and Collectables Fair in Newton Abbott (June-Nov 2022, various dates) and Circus Funtasia in Exmouth July 2022 (various dates) both in Devon UK are looking for sponsorship.
I believe they are prepared to offer various branded recyclable shopping bags etc. and can also, if my sources are correct, offer ” a high level of awareness and marketing support” for Cayman.
Sketch AF
Seymour said that Cayman is expected to get a “high level of awareness and marketing support”
This vagueness doesn’t cut it in the private sector. Thankfully for Mr Seymour and colleagues the Government Overpaid Employment Program is able to ignore the usual standards and keep these folks fed.
What exactly does that mean?
No one really knows. Probably means nothing like most of what this PACT say.
I think that’s the point, it doesn’t really mean anything but it usually suffices as an answer and allows the respondent to evade scrutiny.
He needs to get a high level of awareness!
Portsmouth are in league 1, the third tier of English football. Not ‘first division’ as referenced here, they are 2 leagues below the premier league, where the average club sponsor is your local store, what a joke
It seems like their records do not even warrant our own football players going across “for a friendly”, yet he took our funds to sponsor them. I can see the rest of the Cabinet peeps clapping him on the back and praising him for coming up with such a “bloody grand idea). I can also see him now, strutting across the field ” popa-showing, grinning from ear to ear with his wannabe Obama style grin. Way to go Ken Ken, wishing I was there, but you need to pay every English penny back.
Now that is some real genius guys at work! Lets see how fast we can bankrupt the country. Anybody want to start a wager pool?
Yes
The fact that there is no business case means it wasn’t presented by the marketing team as a high potential investment. The question remains, whose idea was this ? And where did the request come from ? Was it the minister himself ?
Missing a trick CNS. Should get Kenny to give you a grand for putting the thumbnail on the article. Better value for money – although the bar is pretty low! Perhaps they can do a two fee deal for all those Portsmouth fans – buy a ticket to the Portsmouth CI friendly and get a free purse.
What to see the spend on KBB…Kenneth Bryan Beach…launch ramp, education facility, place for tourists/bar…fantasy land.
Is there not a donkey parable that could have been referenced?
The farmers donkey that fell down his well?
The farmers donkey that didn’t want to come out of the well.
What a mess
And you think our leaders make good deals for us? Please!!! We know where the loot is going……….. and it ain’t to the Citizens of the Cayman Islands!
High level of awareness? I think you have to be high to believe it.
Portsmouth finished tenth in the third tier of English football. Their last match was on 30 April.
What was the headline last week Wayne ?
‘Panton: Cayman must prepare for more disruption’
(CNS): The Cayman Islands must expect and prepare for disruption, Premier Wayne Panton said when he addressed the RF Economic Outlook Conference on Wednesday.
And today besides this stupidity from Mr Seymour/Kenneth there’s also,
‘Health insurance help ends as costs rise’
Simple question Mr Premier Sir, – who the h*** is going to pay for my medical costs covering the vertigo you people are giving me ? 👩🏽⚕️😵
They are clueless that’s why they never talk to the people of Cayman directly. They have more videos on CMR than GOV facebook page smh.
They have a pre-election contract to fulfill.
Yep, don’t want to get on the wrong side of the tornado.