New CITA board expects bumper high season
(CNS): The Cayman Islands Tourism Association has elected local watersports operator Troy Leacock as its new president, heading up a largely new board of directors. The sector faces the prospect of the busiest-ever winter season, as visitors are expected to flock back to the Cayman Islands after the border closure and pandemic-related restrictions decimated the sector. Increased airlift into 2023 is expected to help fuel the surge in arrivals.
Over 180,000 guests have visited the Cayman Islands so far this year and the Department of Tourism’s target of over 200,000 visitors by the year-end (40% of 2019 the last full year before the pandemic) is expected to be exceeded by a considerable margin and could be closer to 250,000 guests before the year is out, with around 65,000 visitors expected during the last three months of 2022.
Marc Langevine, the general manager of the Ritz-Carlton and outgoing president who held the reins of the private sector organisation throughout the pandemic, said at the general meeting that the lifting of restrictions by the government last summer came just in time for the sector to prepare for this winter. He said the new Cayman Airways direct flight to Los Angeles (LAX) would set the destination apart.
“At a time when other carriers have reduced routes, it is a blessing that Cayman has the ability and vision to open a direct flight to the LA market, setting Cayman in a unique value proposition which will set us apart from all other Caribbean islands and compete even against the Hawaiian Islands,” he said.
Leacock, a Caymanian watersports operator, knows only too well the difficulties that local business owners have had during the pandemic and he said he wanted to increase CITA’s membership and reach out to small struggling businesses.
“I’m very excited to work with the new board of directors for the upcoming year as we strive to increase and broaden our membership to fully represent and engage all stakeholders of the tourism industry,” Leacock said. “We look forward to welcoming many of the hundreds of small and micro businesses which are an important part of our tourism tapestry.”
The immediate goal of the new board, he added, would be to help members meet the challenges and opportunities as the industry turns the page from reopening to now rebuilding.
See the full details of the new board below:
| Allied: Casey Goff (Jacques Scott) Eileen Keens (Yellow) Hotel: Steven Andre (The Kimpton) # Sharlene Brenkus (Wyndham Resorts) Transport: Gary Todd (Budget Grand Cayman) # Restaurant: Ron Hargrave (Tukka) Markus Mueri (Abacus / Karoo) | Condominium / Villa: Wendy Moore (Renaissance) Danielle Wolfe (Caribbean Club) Watersports: Troy Leacock (Crazy Crab) Stephen Broadbelt (Ocean Frontiers) Attractions: Walker Romanica (Cayman Spirits Company) # Sister Islands: Kimberley Dangerfield (Clearly Cayman) # # Indicates a 2-year term |
The Executive Board:
| President – Troy Leacock Vice President – Wendy Moore | Secretary – Sharlene Brenkus Treasure – Markus Mueri |
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
Any work on the $4.50 tourism minimum wage Mr Troy?
Minus pension and health from that too.
Shall we wait and suffer til another election?!
My business is a member of CITA. In all of the years, I’ve never seen the CITA board ever make any business decisions for me or my business. The board survey’s their membership and then they discuss and lobby on our behalf. Many voices can be heard and that is a lot better than a single voice.
Marc Langevine, the general manager of the Ritz-Carlton I’m applying for your job. Hear me out on this, – anyone from LAX travelling here with CAL’s schedule at peak season for 7-10 days paying your prices is jumping on their private plane instead.
So you think Marc is the one who sets the prices for the rooms? lol
It doesn’t matter whether he does or not, I would imagine though he must be very aware of them, once being head of the CITA & all 🤷🏻♀️
DARTBOTs are legion and out from their dungeon, even at Halloween defending anything connected to DART.
The whole board is full of business owners
The “man” who can fix any and everything.
Welcome on board!
don’t ever compare cayman to hawaii…. hawaii is a real island nation with real culture, traditions and heritage.
And beauty
Hawaii has mountains but it also has a horrific homeless crisis. No comparison which place has a superior economy with an incredible unthinkable annual budget surplus every year. Also Hawaiians can’t shake it like Caymanians do in Batabano. Cue the truck on the road soca song
So go to Hawaii…
Oh, that’s right, you’re after something Hawaii can’t/won’t give you.
Not an island nation but a State in the USA, actually much more like a Colony.
Was a nation at first. It’s very expensive and quite a hike to get to, but top notch for natural beauty.
Not a nation. Otherwise ok.
This will probably not be a popular opinion, but it is MY opinion:
CITA’s goals are not necessarily consistent nor supportive of the goals of the rest of us. I am glad they have a board. I think CITA promotes that which makes money for their members. Nothing wrong with that.
I think if they push the cruise ships, or worse yet cruise piers, they will be pushing a wagon uphill with a heavy load.
Trust me Troy is not in favour of the cruise piers. He was a big supporter of CPR and spoke at one of their rallies. Can’t speak for the rest of them, but at the time of the great port debate CITA was very cautious about the cruise piers.
If only his company would hire Caymanians!
Great job in selection! Looks strikingly similar to Enrique Iglesias too!
For consideration: >10% of Canadian households are now full-time identifying vegans. 50% of US restaurants now offer a plant-based menu. 30% of all Burger King Whopper sales are Beyond Meat pea protein. Our hotels, restaurants, and to some extent our grocers, need to observe and adapt to these new consumer deliverables. Glad to see Luca and some others have adapted, but many have not.
Eat your veggies and let me eat my steak. Veggies detoxify and “cleanse”, meat nourishes.
Okay boomer.
Vegan is boring.
2/3 of American would order steak for their last meal.
Anyone expecting a bumper season of full-fare tourists against the reality of post-COVID airlift disarray, and rampant inflation impacts on market source households, is someone dwelling between over-optimism and detachment from headline reality. The vacation budgets for many households vanished with rate hikes on their mortgage(s). Not much we can do about that, except be realistic about collective pain and/or plan to offer material competitive inducements. Cutting airlift taxes would be a start.
I beg to differ on your opinion.
I regularly see people posting on various Cayman related Facebook pages who intended to vacation in SW Florida (Fort Myers or Sanibel or Captiva) and had to change plans and are visiting Cayman instead.
Others who previously visited TCI and want to avoid their recent negative headlines, now choosing to try Cayman. Demand is there.
Cayman remains a relatively small low density island compared to many destinations. Why does this matter? Cayman doesn’t need to attract millions of visitors- 400,000 is significant. There are many upper middle class to upper class earners in North America who expect to pay $1000/nite in todays world to receive whatever perceived value they see (safe, clean, beautiful beaches etc) and don’t balk at it. Further, we are in the midst of the largest generational wealth transfer ever and many families have no mortgage, no payments, and simply are flush with cash and not enough time to spend it.
I have no interest in paying $1000/night for accommodation, but I’ve come to learn and accept from friends and colleagues that there are many who are fine and have the means to-each to their own.
And for those who say that Cayman has changed and is no longer the place it once was- this is true. And this is true of nearly every sought after destination in the world that I have visited.
However let’s remind ourselves that someone arriving for the first time, who has no previous lived experience and knows no different, may experience Cayman to be the most incredible place they have ever visited- and that’s ok too.
We can lament and wax poetically about the old days to them, but I instead choose to let them have their own experience and embrace what is special for them.
2:51 you posted the below, by your own description demand is not there, Cayman is an ‘alternative/2nd choice from a previously booked destination.
‘I regularly see people posting on various Cayman related Facebook pages who intended to vacation in SW Florida (Fort Myers or Sanibel or Captiva) and had to change plans and are visiting Cayman instead.
Others who previously visited TCI and want to avoid their recent negative headlines, now choosing to try Cayman. Demand is there.
Your last paragraph situated us perfectly alongside everywhere else. Essentially what you’re saying is forget the appeal of ‘the land thst time forgot’ and instead come on down to ‘the land that finally caught up with time’. It’s also striking that your whole vantage point sights the appeal of the potential traveller and disregards the progressive destruction of the community.
That is a correct interpretation in how I situated the comment. The reality is, that is what happened- the Island that Time Forgot no longer exists. I am just stating it as ‘it is’, from the perspective of the traveller. My response was to the OP who lamented of a likely decrease in demand from the projections of stayover guests this winter- and I was rebutting that.
I fully expect that in March CIG will report that the actual number of stay over visitors exceeded what they projected for this high season.
As for considering the perspective of destruction of the community- that is an entirely different conversation- and one which I support. I understand the impacts well, Air BnB, developing for people other than residents, the impacts of the social fabric- those I agree with. For better or for worse, that has historically down little to curtail visitor traffic to any popular tourist destination, unless it was by blocking cruise ship arrivals or not building a dock (which is also a good thing. If a destination is appealing, and is shared via social media, it will become noticed and visited- for better or worse.
I understand what you’re saying 12:44 but with it being underlined by we’ll be ok from the fall out of national disasters and community discord and hopefully some will think this place is great even though we have essentially lost a tourism identity is I think a pretty weak strategy to support a tourism projection model. Back in the day many a visitor would return based purely on the reception and banter with those lovely Holiday Inn buffet ladies, – just sayin.
If Cayman was not riding on the destruction of other places and picking up their scraps, Cayman would be in trouble for tourism. A few years ago, it was the hurricanes that affected the Caribbean. Now it is the destruction that hit Florida. Cayman is not people’s first choice and that is a concern. What is even more concerning is that when these events hit other places, Cayman raises their prices 3 fold and anger and chance losing their repeat guests that they have spent years loyally traveling to the island.
To 4:19″riding on the destruction of other places and picking up their scraps”
You do realize that every destination in Florida and the Caribbean rides this wave every year?- some years they win and some years they lose.
It is a reality of the marketplace and is not unique to Cayman.
Cayman would benefit from a managed retreat on the south portion of 7MB. It would be a big positive if more Caymanians wanted to be employed in tourism and deliver the genuine hospitality of days gone by. Preserving more natural spaces and vegetation as part of an overall development plan would be very positive.
What is the reality?
Nothing changes when nothing changes.
It has been decades since the glory days of the old Holiday Inn and the tourism industry marches on in a total different direction with many lamenting its imminent demise, and yet it continues. In some ways it is relatable to the financial industry too- people have been on their soapbox declaring its inevitable demise for decades, and it continues to march on.
What’s the consistent theme between these two pillars of the economy?
Cayman will be ok. It is just going to be different today and moving forward.
I think you should forgot opining on Caymans tourism product and redirect your resources into forecasting which jurisdiction s will be winners & losers. If you figure that out less than 1% of your earnings will carry everyone in the local industry.
@4:19- Do you really think that Westin, Ritz, Kimpton, Marriott raise their prices without understanding real demand? These companies have data analytics teams that know how many people are looking, booking, and converting at every property they own. They have a much better read on market supply and demand than any resident or politician does.
10:00, – these are the same people making statements of 100% occupancy based on 50 rooms available at a 100 room hotel.
Brilliant comments 👊🏽
Rampant inflation is a reality, and it has a material affect on recreational and entertainent household spending. Airlift also factors: journeys that used to be possible in a day or even pat of a day, are now extra overnights in hub cities in one or both directions. These are just facts.
$1000 a night is a lot and puts you in competition with places that offer a good deal more and are easier to get to. That, as much as the expense, is your problem. From my observation, North Side is the least changed but also has the most vacancy. Being remote with nothing going on has a limited market.
I’m coming down, but after seeing the prices for airfare and hotel, I cut my normal 2 week holiday in Cayman to 6 days. I’m staying at a Airbnb. I’m renting an economy car. I plan on bringing down breakfast and lunch food. I will eat dinner out and that will be pizza or cheap eats. I’m coming for the sun and not to leave my whole life savings. Never do shopping as I don’t need trinkets and they would be cheaper at home. Tipping extra used to be the norm, but not anymore.
Obligatory … If you can’t afford to tip decent…
just looking at your post….have a feeling you were never ever ever tipping extra…
Ref 26/10/2022 @3.52pm.Why bother coming to Cayman if you know you can not afford to enjoy the precious life God gave you? Stay home and exercise and loose some weight some some money until you can afford a vacation.
No need for me to exercise. I am in great shape ( I only weigh 135 lbs ) and I have plenty of money. Just don’t want to drop it all in Cayman where tourists are no longer appreciated, but I will enjoy the beach and hot weather.
I don’t understand how people who have businesses in the industry can get on boards that make major decisions for the entire island when they have their company in mind.
It’s no different than ALT being on the planning board.
I know troy personally and this isn’t something I agree with.
Caymanian or non caymanian has nothing to do with it.
They dont make decisions – they lobby. Big difference.
CITA doesn’t make major decisions to the government. They are an organised private group that elects a board, that has discussions with the government and other stakeholders, but to say that CITA makes major decisions for the entire island and likening to ALT on the planning board is ludicrous. On top of the fact that you are appointed to the planning board by the governments usually and you are elected to CITA.
Its a trade association not a government board.
Congratulations.
Suggestion: work with/encourage government to change the duty on alcohol from being based on volume to being based on price. Like other imports (except fuel) the duty should be based on the cost of the item. This should bring retail prices down for all, certainly making for happier visitors.
If I have this wrong then please point it out.
So those persons that clicked thumbs down would not like a regular alcoholic drink to cost less????
Or is it that they want no alcoholic drinks?
Liquor prices in Cayman are crazy. Fortunately I usually come with at least 6 people and 12 duty free bottles of what we like usually suffices.
Focus on stay over tourist. we need to revise our strategy here. also, we need actual attractions because we can’t rely on the beach anymore.
Nothing happens when I click on the thumbs up or thumbs down.
W H Y ?
CNS: Probably because someone at your IP address has already voted.