Tourism
CIG has cruise pier plans for Cayman Brac, says Bryan
(CNS): Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan has told a tourism journalist that the Cayman Island Government is planning to build a cruise ship pier on Cayman Brac. In an interview Bryan gave to the Caribbean Journal during the Seatrade Cruise Global conference in Miami Beach last week, he said, “We’re planning to either build it ourselves […]
7MB faces new pressure as Indigo readies to open
(CNS): The latest hotel in Dart’s growing list of properties is set to open in April, with guests due to start checking in sometime in June. Hotel Indigo sits on the Esterley Tibbetts Highway across from Seven Mile Public Beach and has 282 rooms and suites, 7,500sqft of meeting space and a rooftop bar. Although […]
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 […]
Minister hedges over tourism recovery for 2024
(CNS): The total number of visitors to the Cayman Islands by air and sea in 2023 easily exceeded the tourism ministry’s original target of 80% of the figures for 2019, the last full year before the borders were closed as a result of the pandemic. Last year, 429,284 stayover visitors arrived, which is 85% of […]
CAL’s 2023 passenger load bigger than pre-COVID
(CNS): The national flag carrier of the Cayman Islands, Cayman Airways Limited (CAL), carried more passengers last year than it did in 2019, the last full year before the borders were closed in 202 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a press release this week, CAL said it transported 422,189 passengers in 2023 compared with […]
A ‘reberth’ of the cruise debate
Michelle Clark writes: It seems that the debate regarding cruise piers has opened once again. This is an emotive issue; there are many varied and nuanced sides to this, and I hope that any referendum question, and inevitably campaigning, addresses this. As a founding member of the Cruise Port Referendum movement, my intention was only […]
Guest numbers climb toward pre-pandemic levels
(CNS): Overnight guest arrivals in November 2023 reached 93% of the numbers for the same month in 2019, the last year before the Cayman Islands Government shut the borders to protect the country from COVID-19, according to Department of Tourism statistics. However, the pace of return was impacted by the borders here remaining closed longer […]
Bryan calls for cruise port vote at next elections
(CNS): Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan has said he would like to see a referendum on the idea of developing cruise port piers at the same time as people go to the polls for the general election in 2025 “to settle the question” once and for all. During his contribution to the budget debate on Monday, […]
October air arrivals reach 86% of pre COVID levels
(CNS): The trend towards a full recovery of the Cayman Islands’ visitor numbers in the wake of the border closures continued in October with 20,568 stay-over visitors representing roughly 86% of 2019’s record breaking year and 16 percentage points higher than this year’s target of 70% of pre-pandemic numbers. During the ten months of 2023 […]
Losses covered on CAL’s Barbados route
(CNS): Cayman Airways’ deal with Barbados to launch the route to the eastern Caribbean island guarantees the airline’s costs, plus a small mark-up according to documents released under a Freedom of Information request. The route ran at just 24% occupancy in October and although November is expected to be better when the numbers are in, […]
Tourism bounce back better than forecast
(CNS): The number of tourists visiting the Cayman Islands had exceeded the ministry’s predictions as of the end of September by more than 13% officials from the department of tourism have revealed. The destination is closing in on the record breaking arrival figures of 2019 as guest numbers have shown steady growth this year.
