Cruise arrivals continue on upward trend
(CNS): According to the latest statistics from the department of tourism cruise passenger arrivals were up for the second month running in August. Although there has been much debate about the decline in cruise business and the need for berthing facilities, the lack of a pier has not prevented an increase in 2010 on 2009 figures. Cruise arrivals were up over 16% for August and so far this year overall cruise arrivals remain up by 4%. Air arrivals are also up this year by 5.4% though passenger numbers were down for the month of August by just 134 people.
While passengers arriving by air from the United States increased the statistics reveal that European and Canadian visitors fell last month. Despite the slight fall in air arrivals estimated hotel occupancy rates were higher for August 2010 than in 2009, the DoT reports. There was a 68.7% occupancy in hotels this year and a 43.6% rate in apartments compared to only 52.3% and 33.9% respectively last year.
Category: Business
Maybe 01:14.. sandra this has nothing to do with UDP. Caymanians somehow are back in the fabric of their country,by the grace of god. That’s the reason for this turn. People come here for the people,if we withdraw they withdraw. It’s as simple as that. Even here bloggin & loggin. Once we are apart of the goin on there’s always fewer problems. Some will never get that. Leave Caymanians out of the harrassing tactics of government & the police who are instructed to do whatever they do (essentially) & let them be free to roam & groom. The cost of airfare is a annoying concept. First,Cayman recieves all off it’s fuel from Venezuela & it is a fallacy to portray the way the big companies do that there is ever a shortage of oil.Fallacy. It is all a strategy & that word marketing. Let’s do what we do Caymanians & i spell cash the same way you do.
Having just returned from the Med I notice a lot of cruise stops don’t have berthing facilities and passengers are tendered into port – they don’t seem to mind at all. Of course I suppose the Med cruises are far away from the long arm of the Florida Cruise Association? Or is it because people still want to stop at these lovely ports (and they would feel the same way about Cayman) so are not concerned about docking – 2x
Signs that the UDP’s efforts are turning to fruition. No one can say that PPM would have done better. It will take time. UDP is going a fine job – my 100% support
Here are a few points to stimulate further discussion.
You should go out more. CI$80 doesn’t get you very far.
If they lowered the airfare there would be a huge increase in stay over guests. The airfare is just way to high and it causes many of us who want to holiday in Cayman to search for other destinations. Our weather is just starting to become colder and this is whenour minds start to focus on planning trips. Lower the airfare now so we can start focusing on GC as our destination!
Christmas week airfare is $1028.
How can I afford to bring my family of 4?
That is before I look into hotels!
The pier is to accomodate the new Oasis (Genesis) class ships, that are not tendered. No dock, no Oasis. At over $1bil. per ship I would presume that the first-tier cruise lines will use these ships. Second and third-tier lines will likely continue to use the tendered ships. If you don’t want the Oasis class ships then don’t build the dock. It’s not a matter of what the passengers want or the weather.
this is utter nonsense….the DOT dont actually know how many cruise passengers come off the ships…..they dont even know how many are on the ships…….all they know is the CAPACITY of the ships…….further, simply saying #’s are up against last year is hugely misleading……firstly, last year was a disaster in the cruise industry for Cayman, simply following on from a persistent decline in revenues and overall business since early the 2000’s…..secondly, whilst the capacity the ships that called may be up year on year, this does NOT state the $$ spending power of these tourists (its lower than low….its astonishing how little money they have).
the cruise business is in free-fall in Cayman ……look around at the number of EMPTY retail outlets available downtown georgetown……they’re not empty because business is good!!
these arrival #’s should be ignored, they are irrelevant and mean nothing when taken out of context…….
caymans cruise industry is a dying animal, one in need of significant and immediate first aid…..without cruise tourism, cayman is dead as a viable tourism market…..problem is, not everyone believes that…….and there is no proper reporting of business plights around town and in the tour operations industries to enable the non-believers to be born again
Cruise numbers up!! wow…..tell that to the business owners that have closed shop in the past 2 years, or the banks that can’t get their loans repaid, or the suppliers that cannot get paid byt he souvenir stores, or the dive operators that can’t hire any divers, or the boat operators that can’t afford fuel…….maybe the Director of Tourism could help….oh, that’s right…there isn’t one
what an absolute mess, and a travesty
I have long said that this whole exercise of a cruise dock is just for a certain cross section in our business community.Some of the people I have spoken to(cruise shippers)are fine with the tendering to and from the ships and there is only a problem when the weather is bad(which will affect the new piers anyway).So whats all the fuss about?I still feel(pretty well know)that cruise ships will visit here regardless of the new docks or not and after all we should only be dealing with 3-4 on any given day anyway.Spread them out all week.
Peter, your naivety is unfortunate….you can’t "pretty much know" that ships will continue to call, not even Govt knows if they will regardles of berths being built or not – there has to be a signed commitment negotiated.
Secondly, the ships can’t be spread out across the week…..the Cayman stop on any itinerary will always be in the majority of all cruises a midweek stop simply due to the most traditional and accepted form of cruising being sunday-sunday from the Eastern ports…..cayman is half-way around the route……its mostly only 10 day and longer cruises that manage to stop here over the weekends.
cruise berthing is needed….the DOT should be pushing this like crazy….if we had some solid berths, and even a half-decent welcome area and arrivals/departure facility…the cruise passengers would not only increase in #, but also they’d be far more likely ot return as STAYOVER’s during the following years…….thats the true benefit of cruise tourism to cayman that’s simply not being undertstood….we’d never have to spend $25M a year on nonsense branding overseas, as we’d have 2MIllion potential returnee’s to be able to impress if we had decent berthing.
man, its so simple….yet seems such a distant reality…..