Ministry re-opens grant window for new tourism ideas
(CNS): Caymanians with good ideas for new tourist attractions have another opportunity to apply for a grant from the ministry to launch new and authentic visitor products and services. The Visitor Experience Development Grant provides financial support for the creation of micro and small businesses that offer something new to visitors. When it was introduced in September last year, the grant attracted 110 applications, and fourteen successful applicants were awarded up to CI$50,000 each for a variety of business ideas.
Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan said the initiative was very different and unlike anything offered before. “It is increasingly important to have diversified and authentic tourism products for our visitors to experience Caymanian hospitality and culture. I look forward to seeing the present awardees thrive and wish them every success with their new business endeavours,” he said.
Each application is evaluated through a financial and technical assessment. The top applicants then proceed to a final round, with scoring by a panel from the Department and the Ministry of Tourism. Those who are granted funding are monitored and evaluated to ensure quality customer service and relevant cultural knowledge. Awardees also undergo training sessions to ensure the business succeeds and the public cash is used as intended.
To be eligible for the grant, the business must be one hundred per cent Caymanian-owned and staffed, offer new products or services aimed at international visitors and be compliant with all relevant licensing and statutory requirements.
To apply, interested parties should complete one application form (found here: www.ourcayman.ky/VEDGP) in its provided format before 30 May and provide all the requested documents. All applications will then be evaluated by a panel of government officials scoring against the established criteria. The highest-scoring applicants will receive grant funding, subject to the approved budget and availability of funds.
Awards of up to KYD $50,000 will be based on the provision of evidence, i.e., quotes and/or invoices, regarding the expected use of the requested funds. Once approved for the grant, successful applicants will be required to submit evidence that funds were solely used for business operations. Otherwise, cessations of funding and or repayment of funds received will apply. Applicants must comply with all requests for documentation relating to expenses.
For more information, visit www.ourcayman.ky/VEDGP or contact the Ministry of Tourism and Ports by email at MOT-Requests@gov.ky.
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What we need are some unregulated beach vendors at all our public beaches.
“Say less, fam”
~K.Brizzle
Cayman needs a modern public music venue that isn’t a vacant Dart lot. Kill the CIMA religious regulatory BS, and fast track entertainer visitor permits and duty waiver their related equipment. We should have star high-season residencies (like the Atlantis or Vegas), regular touring guest performers that aren’t soca, and coordinated and accurate daily music listings via a centralized DoT portal. We should also have a duty free music zone with state of the art recording facilities, attracting tax neutral album recording, domiciling those artist rights and recordings in the Cayman Islands leveraging its international copyright protections. The DoT listings would help local artists expand their audiences beyond the sundowner hotel patio gigs.
You should build one
Every Class A Retail bank, as a condition of their license to operate in the Cayman Islands, should be required to operate at least one serviced ATM USD/KYD cash machine along the SMB Tourism Zone, and publish their migration plan to modern touchless point of sale machines for their merchant clients. Cayman’s banking services are stuck in the early 2000’s, with machines still spiraling-off PETG thermal paper receipts. Fourth largest banking center my *$$. Fix our dinosaur banking services for both tourist and residents.
Build an actual fish market on the empty lot government owns with restrooms, adequate parking and the same health and safety standards that other food prep places nust meet.
Pimp my dumptruck contest! Bonus points for illegal lighting, loudest exhaust, jake brakes, and most aggressive reckless driving, speeding and overloading!
Ice!
We need to put all our money behind Millwall FC.
Don’t you think they’re a little too mainstream? Might we instead consider a Mongolian intergender water polo team?
As a Generational Cayman, I find my country has lost its flair and the CaymanKind that once invited tourists to our shores. Quite frankly, I find my country boring and lacking anything cultural/historical due to ‘greed’ and ‘power hungry people’ (both Caymanian & Rich Foreign Developers).
When I drive in Cayman especially along the SMB stretch, if I don’t remind myself that this is G.T., I would think that I am somewhere in South Florida. (Maybe that is the intention).
So if we want those who visits our shores as genuine tourists to keep coming and not just come as employment seekers or how best I can splur my wealth in the country to gain PR Status, then we must do better to retain, enhance, and reintroduce our tourism products to them.
Here are a few suggestions:
1. Introduce mandatory ‘cultural awareness classes’ to all foreign workers and foreign business owners in the tourism industry. This way such people could atleast provide some minimum information to the tourists other than a chat about where they are from.
2. Have public meetings with Caymanians to find out the core reasons why we stay away from the jobs in the tourism industry or why those in such jobs leave them. From these meetings, create policies that mandate that business owners hire, retain, train, promote and genuinely encourage CAYMANIANS into the tourism industry and see to it that businesses enforce these policies once created. By doing do, we might just get that ‘ole Caymanian tourism feel’ back. Let’s face the facts. Most foreign workers in the tourism industry in Cayman care less about promoting Caymanian Culture/History and much more about that good ole ‘tax free’ Caymanian Dollar that they earn however much it may be.
3. Update the film at Pedro Castle and the National Museum to at least 4K. The information provided is fabulous but the quality of the film is like watching a black and white TV show in the 1970s.
4. Build a cultural /
historical tourism building on the vacant lot in town that currently houses only the craft market. Say a 5 story building. Each floor designated for All THINGS CAYMANIAN and ONLY CAYMANIANS to be employed. E.g. FLOOR 1 – CRAFT MARKET; FLOOR 2 – ALL THINGS MUSICAL; FLOOR 3- THEATRICAL PRESENTATIONS; FLOOR 4- ORAL PRESENTATIONS BY OLDER GENERATIONAL CAYMANIANS. FLOOR 5 – ALL FOODS CAYMANIANS.
If we do not rebrand our tourism industry NOW to enhance things Caymanian, then the future of the industry will be bleak to say the least and ideas from Google about ‘the islands that time forget’ will do no justice for us.
What do u mean 2:44?
No local wants to work for $4.50hourly in tourism?
Then demand better minimum wages from government!
That slave salary raises slightly to $7/hourly this summer, but Grats will NOT be in the salary package after that.
So hospitality staff will probably takenhome LESS than ever! So what?
Stand Up to management if you want better!
Or, learn to speak Hindi and Tagalog. Or gonlive somewhere cold and far when the work permit holders coming from.
Fixing the beach erosion problem must be the number one priority. More sand must be obtained so politicians can bury their heads in it.
We are in debt, let’s spend more for stuff we absolutely dont need.
Welcome to Riffraffistan – Cayman Kind
Clean up SMB public beach would be a great start!
Just flew back, I don’t need any money for these:
1. The “Welcome to the Cayman Islands” hosts that greet the arriving guest planes are the first contact. If they really must grab the airplane PA, they should, at minimum, speak understandably and with command of English. The ESL greetings are setting an unintentionally ironic tone about how Cayman has changed for the worse. I don’t think anyone likes it, least of all Caymanians, who lament what used to be a charming Caymanian welcome.
2. We might recall that QE2 and Prince Philip passed on some time ago, there were territorial holidays for the funerals, and then a double coronation, which appointed successor monarchs. Time to update the photos, or follow protocol with black ribbon and supplement with the new photos. I don’t think this is a matter of subjective opinion.
3. There is one particularly sour baggage loader that feels it’s his duty to express resentment and bad vibes, threatening people with jail for using their phones. There’s a way to say “no phones” while still being pleasant about it. He doesn’t care. Get sour grapes out of that first contact role and redeploy somewhere else!
4. Please fix/maintain the parking machines, or take them out. Scrap the meaningless gatekeeper hut. Institutionalize a passing hospitality and driving courtesy standard for any professional bus or taxi driver licensed by the PTU. As road users it’s not clear from their actions that they are all properly licensed.
5. CITA needs to care enough to push to upgrade the aesthetics of the “industrial park” backroads that bring their guests to the hotel zone.
6. The roaming departures airline reps need to stand clear of guests that actually know how to travel, stand clear out of the entry doors, and avoid being themselves a paid obstruction. If they are going to be there, they should be working to assist people through checkin and baggage drop, keeping the counter exit path lanes clear of baggage and porters. The porters also need to give some air to those arriving curbside that don’t need them grabbing their baggage. We don’t need anti-service.
These are some of the special ways we get it wrong.
the big baggage loader is the opposite of Cayman Kind, horrible first impression
The line for parking ticket payment gets in the way of exiting passengers and greeters.
Relocate the machine out of the way.
Scrap the Green Line “Nothing to Declare” hassler. Why does he need to examine passports when we’ve already cleared Immigration? What does telling this needless CBC scrutinizer where and how long do to calibrate his opinion on passenger honesty? This is another first impression anti-service.
Agree it’s all getting so officious. So much of it seems unnecessary and not what we used to get here in Cayman.
The CBC agents at the desks are really warm and friendly, and Des one of the friendliest baggage handlers ever makes up for any surly colleagues. Key is to train so all are at consistent level.
You are so right Des is a wonderful person . He always goes out of his way to help you.
Do This:
BAN Work Permits for tour bus drivers and guides, Waitress
and Bellmen. Now!!
Locals young or mature can’t even get these low level jobs!!
A Cryin Shame ffs
Africans and Asians etc talking to our guests??.
Does that take a degree?
See minimum wage.
DOT should subsidize any local tourism worker.
CI$1,000 monthly.
But then hotels will cut hours and give us bad shifts.
Minimum Wage should be a MONTHLY Minimum, not hourly, for employers cut days and hours at will..for expat workers also.
“DOT should subsidize any local tourism worker.
CI$1,000 monthly”. You should run with the PPM, spend spend, spend!
You want to ban Africans and Asians from talking to guests? What nonsense is that?
And no foreign guides? What about dive guides? Do you know how many Caymanian Dive Instructors there are compared to how many tourists want to dive every day and follow a guide?
And if you insisted all waiting jobs were Caymanian only, there would not be anywhere near enough wanting to do it.
Please understand that all these foreigners are working these jobs for a reason – there are not enough Caymanians to do them!
DoT/Ministry of Tourism morons. Yes, you Stran and others…
Want to attract more tourists? Cater to more accessibility challenged tourists. Oh, wait, I forgot. No Government has required any hotels, condos or resorts to have facilities which cater to that market!! Why not?
When they get here, offer: slum tours in the known parts of GT; spend-a-day at GOAB watching our Politicians and Civil Servants waste millions per week; island-wide crack tours; view Jamaicans and Filipinos decimating all young sealife from the shore; experience morning commute from Eastern districts.
Just a few ‘ideas’, Stran!
Handbags LMAO
Open air ice rink on the Royal Watler Cruise Terminal (maybe have sun shade canopies to stop people getting sunburn)
Above-ground snorkeling tours – set up a stall on Fort Street, tell the cruise passengers that our ancestors used to have to snorkel above ground to avoid breathing in the mosquito’s. Rent out snorkels and masks (maybe some flippers as an ultimate package) and provide guided walks around town.
Hog Sty Bay Golf Range – set up a raised stand in the harbour and let people try to hit the ships, charge $10 a ball. (On a related note, hire recent graduates returning with their ‘business’ degrees to paddleboard all day collecting the balls that don’t sink)
Turtle Wrestling – designate an area in Barkers, let loose a few turtles, and advertise the thrill of a lifetime to big-game hunters/wrestlers as they enter the ‘shell’. Charge $250 for 5 minutes roaming the lands, after telling them about the giant Cayman turtles that are unique to our lands
Scavenger hunts – for $100 entry fee, a team of 4 tourists are tasked with finding an affordable home.
I have so many more.
How about a Cayman Community Farm dedicated to the Wildwood Weed at Red Spot Bay with guided tours led by Bryan. Music can be provided by Jim Stafford.
Has there ever been any update on the 14 grants that were granted? Who/What exactly? When will the ideas be bear fruit?
I wonder if that would be subject to an FOI request – maybe not who (except to know if they are connected to a politician) but what the ideas were and how success is monitored
Please submit one and report back. Our authorities need more accountability.
More deficit spending! Truly wise government we have to be spending more on non essential things to dig the hole deeper
“Once approved for the grant, successful applicants will be required to submit evidence that funds were solely used for business operations. Otherwise, cessations of funding and or repayment of funds received will apply.”
Serious questions: How does the Ministry or DoT enforce the repayment of funds? And what timeframe is given to pay back in full?
Last minute vote buying… using money we don’t have.
UNABLE to do the jobs that they have and need to resort to find it from others! Such a SHAM!
LOL. They can’t enforce anything.
They don’t enforce against anyone if it will cost them voters.
Same with RCIPS.
Pass the rum.
#CaymanKind