PPM leader attacks minister over tourism figures
(CNS): Opposition Leader Roy McTaggart has taken aim at Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan over the final tally of visitors in 2023 and what he said was a lack of ambition for the 2024 target. McTaggart said that most of this destination’s regional competitors had already reached their pre-pandemic arrival numbers, while at the end of 2023, Cayman had reached 85% of its record-breaking half a million stayover guests who came in 2019, and urgent action was needed to boost the sector.
In a video message, McTaggart accused the government of “inaction and complacency” over the struggling tourism industry. Even though the government collected a record-breaking sum in accommodation tax and many believe the local infrastructure is not keeping up with growth, the Progressives want a return to the huge numbers of both cruise passengers and stayover guests arriving before the pandemic closed the borders.
McTaggart is calling for action to attract more tourists to fund the businesses and jobs that depend on the sector, even though the number of locals working in tourism is still fairly low and the sector is staffed largely by expatriate workers on minimum wage.
He said the current state of the Cayman Islands tourism industry was “extremely worrying”, and despite claims by the government during the budget debate that there would be a full recovery by the end of the year, that was not the case. He said the predictions for the end of 2024 also fell below the 2019 peak, showing that the new UPM premier and tourism minister have been overly optimistic.
“It’s time for innovative strategies and collaborative efforts to rejuvenate tourism, focus on sustainable tourist products and ensure the industry’s future prosperity,” the PPM leader stated. He said the Progressives could help to come up with a strategic tourism model, which he claimed could be sustainable, maintaining that waiting for the next election and a new government would be too late.
See the video message below:
- Fascinated
- Happy
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- Afraid
Utilizing an airplane to fly back and forth to Barbados with 12- 15 people each way was Kenneth’s way of growing tourism..
I don’t know how much Barbados is paying for that (if they are paying anything) but I can tell you based on the few people I see getting on and off those flights they sure as hell ain’t getting a good deal neitheris Cayman or Cayman Airways.
Why not cut the losses and plan a more lucrative route with that aircraft and for God’s sake give us more than one flight to Miami a day..
I have heard that Barbados owes us money for the “charter flights” that the Minister has implemented. Don’t know if the statements are true but no doubt the Minister can/will clarify it for us.
Orlando please!
There’s more to the Kenny Barbados saga , there must be something other than unimaginable stupidity to explain why this kind of money is being thrown away.
Poor Roy. Someone please tell him to stop talking and retire once and for all. So negative about every single thing its draining
Are you denying that there’s any truth to what he’s saying?
Putting aside your dislike for him for a moment, what do you think of the points he’s raised?
You’ve commented on the person offering the ideas but not his actual ideas.
We are SO lost. We have the UPM on one side, which seems intent on spending millions that we don’t have, and have to borrow to get. Meanwhile, the common people suffer without relief, unless they become part of the NAU; if we become part of the NAU, all we have to worry about is whether we can get on the road crew, so we can afford booze and cigarette money. What a country.
On the other hand, there are the remnants of the PPM, who never gave up the Cruise Port dream, and might just throw in with Mr. Kenny, if he dared to dream outside of his current keepers.
PPM wants power, and money and control, just like every other recent government. Screw us, the people who are struggling to make ends meet. EVERY recent government wants to garner big, big money, through foreign investment concessions, through cruise passenger dollars. When are you going to do what is best for the rest of us?
If you don’t work for government, you don’t matter.
If you don’t work for government, you don’t matter.
Roy is private sector trained.
he has not spent enough time with civil servants in order to unskill himself.
remember Alden Marco Joey and Julie were all civil servants.
Poor Roy has become a joke every time he speaks. Please retire and stop embarrassing yourself
Expedia, Marriott, and others in the travel sector are warning slower revenue growth as the post-pandemic travel boom wanes. Having experienced a one-time 15% surge in 2023, they are expected to miss profit expectations for 2024 with growth slowing to perhaps 3% at best. Cayman shouldn’t get too comfortable with last year’s one-time numbers.
Sounds like a win-win for residents here! Less traffic and lower rents due to the VRBO cabal getting their come-up!
Right?? Like, do you promise, 2:57?? 😍
Plus UK in recession now.
Marriott and all its foreign workforce can leave. No loss on this island.
Tourism is the second economic pillar by a substantial 4x gap, barely cracking 20% of CIG General Revenue, and that’s before we deduct the running subsidy costs of the Turtle Farm and Cayman Airways (to the extend we ever know the true figures). If that’s the case, then who’s hymn sheet is Roy signing from, and why? It’s suspicious that this is ALWAYS the sorted priority of PPM brainstorming.
We won’t have any tourism soon with all the time crime on this island. They need to worry about that first.
The freaks come out at night
🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Utter drivel. At its worst, Cayman is the safest island in the Caribbean by a significant margin, and still one of the safest places to be in the entire world.
roy/ppm…..when pact collapsed you could not even form a government…and then went on to approve the upm shambolic budget proposals…
go take a nap.
do-nothing-ppm… as bad in opposition as they were in power.
continuing to push for cruise ship berthing. imagine if they had built that thing and the storm last week came. wow. never.. the people have seen where not to invest the $
Humans have been battling with the seas since creation, the seas always win. That is why “Caymanians didn’t build houses on the beach”.
Roy boy never with anything positive. Color me shocked – NOT.
He cant have anything positive to say. Roy wants power, he wants to be premier, he cant even so much as imply anyone but him can succeed.
If the current government discovered to key to clean free perpetual energy tomorrow and Roy would be out screaming that they are putting hard working diesel mechanics out of work.
Roy is doing what an opposition is supposed to do, that is to question the unfettered madness of an uneducated unprincipled narcissist.
However the list of matters the Opposition should be addressing is very long, and there’s time to pick them off one at a time.
Roy could very easily have been Premier. He chose the path of integrity by refusing to team up with Mac, unlike Wayne and the rest of them.
Don’t forget the other convicted criminal they refused to team up with. #integritymatters
Roy McTaggart was Minister of Finance when McKeeva Bush agreed with the PPM as co-leader to from the coalition government called the UNITY Government from 2017-2021.
He agreed to it and all the other PPM MP’s agreed to working with McKeeva Bush and appointed him Speaker.
Stop spreading lies and pure nonsense. They did it for power.
Where were the principles of Roy McTaggart, Joey Hew, Moses Kirkconnell, Julie O’Connor-Connolly, David Wight, Barbara Connolly and all the rest?
Check your facts or get checked.
If you know, you know. You don’t know.
Sorry more facts – two major scandals both involving women (one international) over 1460 days and not a single word from Alden, Roy, Barbara or the righteous Juliana. NOT ONE WORD. A long time to keep your principles swallowed.
LMFAO what is this BS revisionist history? Roy was part of the PPM that, instead of pushing for Mac to be dealt with, literally *CALLED AN EARLY ELECTION SO THEY DIDN’T HAVE TO BE THE ONES TO REMOVE HIM AND COULD THEREFORE STAY ON HIS GOOD SIDE*. Mac even said himself that he knows where all the bodies are buried – you think it’s only ol’ Spen’y Kenny he’s got by the balls?
Stop with the PPM propaganda. They’re done; start looking for another teat to latch on to.
Well said 12.22.
Mac not worth the sacrifice of principles.
It’s fine. People will be flocking to Public Beach to enjoy that classy ambience.
The Barbados flight will also fix things!
In 2024, I’m just glad the Trolley Roger isn’t a blight on the roads here.
As for McTaggart, stop trying to be relevant, you’re failing.
I miss the Trolley Roger and the Jolly Roger Ship!! 2 good tours and now we only have turtle farm buses and a cheap carnival cruise offering? pathetic!
Has there been any of these press releases since the new government came in? Just about confirms that O’Connor is safe from the opposition – they won’t dare say a word about her
Has JOCC resigned from the PPM? This seems to be hiding in plain sight!
Has she resigned from the UDP yet? CDP?
Hip-Hip Hooray for old Roy, he and the rest of PPM are always so on top of things!
Roy seems to be following Spendy’s lead by talking stupid **** before he thinks, alright, alright, he’s thought about this but still talking stupid ****.
Roy, who was in power during the pandemic when the borders were shut which then saw a shift of regular visitors finding new destinations ?
There’s no ‘A’ in PPM 🙄
Can it be made any more obvious that the PPM do not work for Caymanians?
It sounds almost as though they’ve made promises and cashed cheques to FCCA and a small handful of attraction owners!
Roy. Read the CNS article. It may help you to understand what you and the PPM have done.
The Progressives have no solutions they only do what they are told by their sponsors in Camana Bay, CIREBA and the SMB corridor. They work for the elite and expat lobby not the majority of Caymanians.
and PACT/UPM ?
Whose bidding do they do? Don Seymour ?
They do what Mac tells them to do..
Roy doesn’t understand Kenny. After the year is over, King Kenny will announce announce that he has shattered tourism expectations, and as the most successful Minister he is now ready to add Premier and Minister of Finance to his portfolio.
Now that… is some scary sh!t!!!
God forbid
PPM talking nonsense as usual. They are pushing for increased cruise tourism numbers to help supporters like Kirk Freeport. Cayman does not need cruise berthing or do they forgot how CPR exposed all their lies?
The response from Kenny Bryan will be emotional and entertaining.
Roy McTaggart is a nice man but has passed his sell by date as a leader. Ironically, he is still more competent and respected than his deputy leader of the opposition Joey Hew.
The Progressives are dying on the vine because the majority of the country do not trust them and their policies after years of witnessing them
working for the wealthy and giving away hundreds of millions in concessions to wealthy developers and political financiers.
Hew is desperate to finish destroying the Progressives as the new leader of a party that is dying before our eyes. McTaggart, Hew, David Wight, Barbara Connolly guarantee that the end of the party is near. Even Sir Alden has abandoned the party for a bigger paycheck and perks as Speaker of Parliament.
Who!!! Long time …
Just got out.
Good to see you Who!!
Compromises need to be made in negotiations to get the AA GCM/MIA flight back to the 2019 departure/arrival times. Many destinations are now not reachable without an overnight coming and going.
In regards to CAL, the Barbados flight is a bust. We need to service markets where people want to come to us, not where we think would be a nice place to vacation.
Grand Cayman is a building site going higher and higher. No sea views unless you pay top dollar for one of Dart’s hotels. Seven mile beach fast becoming seven mile road. Rising crime. Who wouldn’t want to visit?
Might as well pick the low hanging fruit first and let’s face it, nothing is lower hanging than Kenny.
Jon Jon, your next.
Follows by the very dangerous Saunders.
The majority of residents are fine with the reduced numbers, like the majority who are inconvenienced by more cruise ships and the traffic congestion.
Less would be better.
we’d actually like to reduce them more, completely.
5:15pm – spoken like a truly privelidged person who probably works in the financial service industry or government who cares for no one other than themselves. There are many people who’s livelihoods depend on tourism.
You can be against cruise ship tourism, but your attitude about less tourists being better is telling about you as a person.
In response to 12:24,
“There are many people who’s livelihoods depend on tourism.”
Yet it is often stated (paraphrasing) in the comments on CNS that “there are few Caymanians working in tourism- it is mostly expats.”
Wouldn’t shrinking the tourism industry, reduce the number of expats on permits? And isn’t that a desired outcome for most?
Asking for a friend.
We could retrain the industry for new work. Island cleanliness and beautifcation, for one, as it is sure needed outside of Camana Bay.
This guy. Everyone is mad at Kenny, stike while iron is hot. This guy is just more of the same. Get rid of both.