Cruise lines still refuse to tender mega-ships
(CNS): The number of cruise passengers expected to visit the Cayman Islands in future years is predicted to drop significantly, Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan said following recent meetings with the cruise lines. Without a cruise berthing facility in George Town, Carnival and Royal Caribbean are still refusing to tender their larger ships, and as they increase the number of those mega vessels in this region, the number of passengers calling will decrease by around 50% by 2024.
Speaking at the Cayman Islands Tourism Association annual meeting on Thursday, Bryan, who has spent much of the last month on the road attending tourism-related events, updated the private sector members on the sector in general.
Speaking about the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA) Conference in the Dominican Republic earlier this month, he said the larger cruise lines had confirmed the likely decrease in passengers they will be bringing next year and the year after. Bryan said it was unfortunate, but “due to our lack of a walk-on, walk-off facility”, the larger ships are unwilling to tender, mostly because of the “time it takes to ferry passengers on and off the ships”.
But he stressed that the PACT Government would not go against the wishes of the people and there would be no dock. Instead, he has been engaging with other cruise lines with smaller ships to encourage them to make more calls over the year. He said discussions with lines operating smaller ships with passengers that have higher spending power were encouraging and they will still be coming and even increasing the number of calls.
By 2024, the annual cruise visitor numbers to Cayman will be around 746,000 as the major cruise lines cut calls to this destination. While that is around half the number of passengers seen at the peak of cruise tourism in 2019, the current tourism policy is to focus on the quality of guests rather than the number.
Overnight tourism is expected to gradually return to pre-pandemic numbers, with guests predicted to spend more when they are here during 2023, which will be the first full year of both stay-over and cruise tourism.
Bryan said he appreciated those focused on the cruise sector would need to prepare for the decline. He said that by 2024, Royal Caribbean will be bringing 100,000 fewer cruisers than in 2019, and Carnival is cutting the number of ships from 327 to 171 next year. Given the certainty of fewer cruise passengers but an increase in stay-over visitors, he advised business owners to “fine-tune” their operations and “be smart with your business decisions”.
In the meantime, he said, his ministry had been in “encouraging” discussions with cruise lines operating smaller ships with passengers with a higher yield, such as MSC Cruises and Holland America, and that Cayman could “look forward to their schedules being maintained and possibly increasing in the near future”.
But with airlift growing and market campaigns having the desired effect, the minister was extremely optimistic about the increase in the far more lucrative overnight market, which is already shaping up to be the best winter season on record. “The projections indicate that growth will continue in 2023 and capacity into the Cayman Islands will surpass 2019 numbers,” he said.
Even though American Airlines and other US-based carriers will be flying fewer people here during this coming winter season, the new Cayman Airways flight to LAX and other additional airlines coming to Cayman, overall airlift numbers are increasing by about 1% compared to 2019.
Marc Langevin, the outgoing CITA president and manager of the Ritz-Carlton, said that visitor numbers are finally back on track after the border closures. He said the three big hotels and other accommodation sectors were expecting the last three months of this year to be even better than the record-breaking 2019 season. The tourism ministry’s target for 2022 was 40% of the 2019 figure, which would equate to about 200,000 passengers and would easily be exceeded, officials have confirmed.
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Cayman is an offshore financial sector with hugely expensive hotels and restaurants which are lower quality than most places worldwide. Also there is no nightlife or culture. It’s is not a tourism destination of the future. It’s a business island. After 10pm everything closes.
They aren’t missing much
Less is more.
Yay! Go tender your trash cans somewhere else. We need to get into high quality, stayover eco tourism fast.
Cruise lines with Mega ships refusing to tender them is a scare tactic by the cruise lines. They are waving an imaginary dollar over our heads hoping we will jump for it because they know these large ships are unsustainable. As long as we have the 5-mile beach they will have customers who want to come here. Leep resisting it Cayman and soon they will have a miraculous change in attitude and will allow them to be tendered.
We don’t want them anyways
Whatever Kenny’s going to get for tourists out of LA he is losing from no daily non stop flights from Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis. If you live in the midwest it is or will be almost impossible to make it to Cayman in one day. That means overnighting somewhere to catch early flight, probably $200-$300 dollars, then TSA security check again. And it’s probably the same on return. Why do I need this hassle to start my vacation 🤔🤔🤔
By the way. MSC is NOT a boutique cruise line. Their ships are as big as Carnival or RC. Just more of the over fed, damn near dead crowd. Think Seabourn, SilverSeas, Regent or Crystal, that’s where the money is.
KX flight to LAX will be withdrawn by March, makes no sense even for KX
The PPM vision was late; it should have been launched ten or fifteen years earlier. We cannot go back to a time where that was applicable.
The mega-cruise ship model is done for us. It is probably done for most of the world. It is not sustainable, and we should not in any way get our systems hooked into it. The cruise ship model in general doesn’t much fit for us either.
We are stayover tourism. That’s our huckleberry. That is also a system that benefits the most people.
Except Dart’s new hotels are going to squeeze out Public Beach worse than the cruise shippers ever did.
If we had good leadership, we wouldn’t have Dart!!!
Oh no, what about that $60???
Too right. Why would the cruise lines do it… you don’t pay to get off on a little boat (which some monopoly take all the cash for in cayman). Clearly short sighted to not build a new terminal, although I’m not sure cruise tourism really adds anything to cayman and the economy, just pollutes the sea.
Focus on stay over Kenneth, I’m already sick to death of the tourist herd wandering around GT walking in front of cars and looking for the cheapest places to shop and eat. We need quality and a class of tourist that matches the product we became famous for. When the first scuba divers started coming here it was for the pristine clear beautiful marine environment, the happy peaceful and welcoming people and the natural beauty. Today we have changed our demographic to where a large percentage of what are now “Caymanian” are hustlers, litter bugs, and horrible drivers who imported their bad habits from their homelands. Take a drive down by Blue Marlin and you will see what I mean! That is not Cayman and I don’t care who is offended! Yes I am talking about my Jamaican brethren who seem to have come here to pillage and change. The population of Jamaican nationals here must reduce and now! They are finding the nearest vulnerable female and “breeding her” and not so long from there she is walking around with his Pinckney speaking in patois and adopting the imported ghetto fabulous BS lifestyle
Which is based on hustling and fakeness. I’m so sick of it. Walked past the public bus depot the other day and there was a huge row going on, cussing, shouting and who don’t have their ass hanging out the back of his pants had their jeans 3 sizes too small or both. We have been infiltrated by rif raf and we sit quietly by suffering the daily car accidents, crime and “ghettofication”. It needs to stop and now! This is not Cayman
good lord you are full of a lot of hate
You are correct in your comment 5:47 though “frustration” might be a better word than “hate”. Unfortunately, the picture the poster paints is all too familiar to most of us. Many Jamaicans….the decent hard working ones….would actually agree: “they give too many problems for the rest of we” is something I hear a lot. The troubling thing is just how many Jamaican origin young men are sitting around this island…check Bodden Town….doing absolutely nothing ( it seems) except messing around in nasty yards full of semi derelict vehicles up on blocks, listening to very loud Jamaican music.
Totally agree about BT 8:21. Check the house right next to Webster Church. Must be at least 15 beat up vehicles in front and back there.
I came down in December before the cruise ships were back and there was more trash around Cayman than I ever seen before.
Brilliant. This is the best summary of what I’ve seen change in cayman in the last decade ever posted on CNS. The car accidents, incoherent speech, robbery, and trousers round their knees in particular. Hate the way they stare and try to get my wife in their car even at a supermarket in the middle of the day.
If government plans to reduce cruise tourism it will also reduce locals paychecks: those in the stores, taxi drivers, dive boats, restaurant staff, etc.
Maybe government can start supporting that group again?
The boats and taxis are a complete rip off. No one will pay their ridiculous current rates, and the only way to attract the new cruise line shops is with a new dock
Sorry, Bozo! We ain’t building no new dock! We can do very well with what we have. I said it and I’m glad.
Don’t be so sure Bobo…
As soon as Mac has a chance to tell Kenneth about ALL the benefits of doing business with the generous Chinese…
CHEC just waiting for Mac’s call .
Don’t be asinine.
Agreed. Quiet.
It’s an old lie they continue to spew as alt-truth. Port records prove we have already served them by tender for years. Let them MAGA-lie somewhere else, where they are, coincidentally, probably also tendering. Adios! Meanwhile, let’s just focus our tourism service efforts on those people who want to come here, on our reasonable terms, respecting our environment, and self-determination.
Things like docks for boats and bridges for cars are for first world countries only.
Don’t be asinine!
If anything, the last couple of years have shown that Cayman can survive quiet well without cruise ships. Those visitors don’t spend a dime anymore here, just linger around Town browsing and nothing more.
Who under 50 wears an analogue wrist watch anymore? Do more than a handful of random bored acquire China sets and crystal figurines while on tour? These are outer fringe impulse items that might have been on target back in our grandparents era of 1950-2010s, but what a tired and doomed business to just decide never to adjust and evolve to the consumer appetites of 2023. All of GT’s shopping could theoretically burn to the ground and it wouldn’t matter to Cayman or visitor. Maybe that’s the insurance plan.
Or to the locals except for maybe Christmas but even then most people go else where due to traffic and parking.
Due to the abject failures of consecutive governments and their Civil Service
Mickey Mouse wears a PACT one.
Be careful for what you wish for. Cayman hotels getting so expensive that repeat guests are being priced out. We may be praying for cruise ships if things keep on this path.
There is SO MUCH MONEY out there! SO MUCH!
Only for the greedy, my friend.
Only for the greedy!
Lets hope the Government is prepared to continue with the Tourism Stipend. To survive it has cost the Country around 10 million per month for that period. The math is pretty easy the studies show that the average cruise passenger spends around $100.00 for 1 million passengers less per annum that equates to $100 million dollars in the economy. Hopefully the tour bus operators, stingray city operators and shop owners that were getting that money will find something else to do or will get money from Government.
$100m HAHAHAHA
There is not much worth buying downtown. None of the watches, cameras, china, silverware, crystal, leather, jewelry, etc. are better buys than anywhere else. The art, wood carvings, fabric items, plaques, t shirts etc are mostly not local. Duty free means nothing nowadays. You can bad mouth the cheap cruise tourists, but the fact is you are not offering anything interesting to either cruisers or stayovers. Liquor, baskets and hats are about it.
That’s good, Cayman is small why do we need an influx of cruise ships and people when we can’t even take care of what we get now. stick to what we have now and call it a day. Greed is what i smell.
Roger that!
Great news! Might get served quicker in Burger King, Subway and KFC now.
I haven’t travelled 50+ times to Cayman the past 38 years to eat at BK, SW or KFC.
Well….. Tell us why you DID come.
What I remember when I first visited was how lovely the people were. Expats and Caymanians and they would remember me, or at least pretended to so that felt great. I felt it was like a second home and I felt safe when out and about. Cayman has ALWAYS been expensive, but I came year after year, sometimes a few times a year. I would have continued to visit if I didn’t decide to move down full-time and use my old home as my second home.
I came all these years for the beach, the sun, the people, the safe feeling of the island, the island vibe, the friends I made thru the years. Been coming down for over 25 years. Do not like what is becoming of the island. Losing the peaceful feel.
shame because many people and cruise lines want to come here. somehow cayman cannot do docking facilities but most other places can???….how?
For starters, GT is an unsheltered blue water port ramping from 1000+ feet to 10’ with a seabed of soft iron pan and fractured and cavernous limestone, fully exposed to recurring severe weather. Nobody has successfully built port berthing in those conditions. The reef location earmarked for destruction for a port, is a Cayman Islands Marine Park, Mission Blue Hope Spot, and is also the best snorkeling in Grand Cayman – one of the primary reasons tourists want to visit Grand Cayman. Zero tourists load up for thousands of dollars in hopes they might buy a shot glass or tshirt in George Town. Zero.
We can, but the last three years has clearly shown that the people of Cayman do not want it.
The people of Cayman have not been asked. Why are you so afraid to hold our referendum?
A cruise pier would most likely cause catastrophic damage to the environment while simultaneously burdening this country with Haiti like financial obligations that would take away our freedom and lock us into a bleak future of swarms of imbeciles staggering down an eroding shoreline until there is nothing left. Then they leave cayman and we have nothing!
Who says we have nothing?
Bull poop!
Imbeciles. When you travel is that what you like to be called?
Troll
Nobody is afraid of a referendum. In reality, it is the opposite – we fought for a referendum when PPM decided to try to sell us out, and fact is that PPM denied us that right. We are more than ready to vote NO on a cruise terminal. Especially if they don’t try to “outsmart” people by tacking it onto the same bill as a cargo port upgrade. Frame the question “Does Cayman need a cruise berthing terminal?” and require that the 50%+1 onus is on those that desire the terminal. Then we will see who’s afraid of a referendum, because you will absolutely not get the votes required to support the facility.
Hopefully PACT has determined that there is absolutely no need for it, if not due to these hollow “threats” from the cruise lines. Particularly the failing Carnival, who are literal billions of dollars in debt right now and on the verge of bankruptcy yet again https://www.tradewindsnews.com/cruise-and-ferry/carnival-offers-1-25bn-in-bonds-as-it-faces-35bn-in-covid-19-debt/2-1-1336765
Factually incorrect, the referendum was blocked by the “Cruise Port Referendum” lobby. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. #wewokerthanyou
No. They were ready to vote. Alden cancelled it because he knew he was losing. It was quite a travesty and we were all there to see it, so stop the tall tales, we know better.
Not can’t, choose not to – for perfectly good reasons
If they really want to come here they can. Plenty of air service and room stock.
Agreed that stay-over is what the focus should be on, but there needs to be more ‘affordable’ hotel accommodation (i.e. US$500 and less per night).
Under $250-$200 is more reasonable for the average family. That is what Comfort Suites, Sunshine Suites, Locale, Holiday Inn used to offer before the island got greedy. That is also a fair price for a hotel that is not on the beach.
Air service is costing over $1,000 to fly down. Hotels are $600 plus/night. How many families can afford this? What is there to do once they get there?
concentrate on quality over quantity….plus let cruise ships stay overnight
Cayman needs a Gaming Commission that will initially focus on allowing paid up liners to open their Casinos in port for a percentage of the house. Those boats won’t “need” to get out to international sea to open tables before dinner…guests can enjoy late dinners and entertainment ashore, and liners can play host to locals that want to pay to play for an evening pass. We don’t need to build any casinos, they are already here. Free money source for CIG we ignore. More jobs for Caymanians. Incredible entertainment possibilities in GT for visitors and residents alike = higher quality of life. Scrap the illogical and obstructive Cayman Islands Music Association…make it easier to bring A-list quality entertainers here. Bring the glamour, and earn the prestige. Or keep subsidizing failing businesses still trying to sell rude tshirts and spring break shot glasses.
lol dreamer
Promise??? 😍
Fear not good people … the Jamaicans and Cubans will surely continue to arrive via canoe and non-seaworthy vessel, respectively and we will roll out our usual welcome carpet to them.
Excellent news!!!!
If we had a pro-active Dept of Tourism they would be seizing on that information as an excellent marketing opportunity and seeking to attract the 100-200 passenger ‘Expedition’ ships that now stay in the more exclusive destinations in the Eastern Caribbean. Those ships cater to very high net worth passengers who buy more than T-shirts.
And what would Cayman offer these high net worth passengers?
We dont need no stinkin’ cruise ships.
(best said in a strong mexican accent)
I’m very grateful to read this. This will be much better anyway, less tourists, yet higher spend tourists will mean that the experience will be much nicer. I bet MCS and Holland America are more than happier to come now that they won’t be lumped with the Carnival cruises.
Enough with the cruise berth talk.
People need to think outside the box of environmentally marine life friendly solutions like the 50 story Dart tower That reduces forest wetland destruction but still enhances growth on island. Isn’t the average cruise ship passenger spending under $15 dollars when on island for 5-6 hours. If Cayman can get through the pandemic well then Cayman can adapt to post pandemic reduced cruise ship visitors and focus on stay over vacationers. When in doubt ask yourself What Would Flipper Say about this? Flipper would do 3 squeaks and shake his tail at the idea of a berthing cruise facility.
Hip hip, hoooorahhhhh!!!!
We don’t want them here anyway. Terrible for the environment. Bryan should know how the majority feel about Cruises Ships. Concentrate on the smaller highend ships and stay over tourist. Let’s be a high end destination please.
What is there to offer?
High end my back side
Cayman is expensive mediocrity in every aspect
High end. Luxury. High net worth tourist. Cayman is none of that. Cayman is just EXPENSIVE.
There is nothing to do in Cayman besides Stingray City and diving unless you add in a trip to Hell. Rum Point is even still closed. No nightlife. No place for cruise ship passengers to go since the closing of Royal Palms and Calico. 7MB is only 41/2 MB. Shopping consists of one mall that is overpriced or George Town that is not walking friendly. Too much traffic, excessive building of hotels that the regular family can not afford, and concrete everywhere. George Town is not even family friendly after dark. Restaurants are not high end, just expensive drinks and food.
Please, what is high end luxury about the Cayman Islands except the price?
Ok, well that about nails it succinctly 4:37!!
You defeat your own narrative.
If there is “nothing” here, why do they keep coming? Should we continue to degrade the environment which once attracted the “get-away-from-it-all” tourists?
Cayman is a destination for the business traveler, the professional adult, families and honeymooners and also as a cruise ship stop. It is not a high end destination. It is an expensive island that offers diving, stingray city and expensive food and drink. No casino, no nightlife, no spring break atmosphere, and only a handful of excursions.
Why do people come? People come for business, diving, honeymoons, cruise ship stops and families come for a beach trip. All those who come find it Expensive, but don’t hear many say “wow, this destination is so high end”. Lately, most that have recently visited say “ wow, expensive and lots of traffic and construction”.
All we seem to offer is Jamaican taxi drivers, Jamaicans jumping up and down with placards, Jamaicans selling tat at the public beach..
Our “minister” of tourism is blind to anything other than pandering to his illiterate voters.
Why aren’t Caymanians doing those jobs?
Cruise Tourism is a dying business. Thank god that port wasn’t built which would have been a disaster on so many levels for the Cayman Islands.
I read these comments after coming down for years. It’s a screw you to repeat guests.
Good thing we’re not a mega size island then.
Kenny’s relying on that LAX flight, I’m not so sure about that one. Perhaps they can add one to Western Canada as well? Or add on a leg after LAX?
Canadian flights seem to be doing well as usual.
Vegas baby!
Build our berthing facility Kenny!
BTW – When is the referendum being held?
While I feel for those that will lose out on this news, the writing has been on the wall since 2020. If you haven’t figured out a plan B for your future, you best get on it quick.
It’s like travel agents, whilst there are still a few out there it’s not a growing segment so if you’re still in it, then be prepared for less business. We can’t stay in the 90’s or the 2000’s just for a few…
Best news we have had for a while.
This is even better news than if the gov had a plan to reduce cruise tourism.