Business View Caribbean - April 2015 19
BV: You mentioned staying in front of the target au-
dience in those markets – where is the bulk of your
visitors coming from? Is the UK your biggest mar-
ket? Is the U.S.? Is it somewhere else?
HARRIS:
Due to our close proximity to the United
States, the majority of our airlift originates in the U.S.
and it accounts for 80 percent of our visitation. Cana-
da is second to that, followed by UK/Europe. And cer-
tainly what plays a role in that is how easy it is to get to
the destination. But we’ve found that there’s certainly
interest from Latin America. We’re exploring opportu-
nities in Brazil and Argentina, and other areas of Latin
America. And we’re also looking at our legislation as
it relates to Europeans and Asian travelers to ensure
that we’re able to diversify our visitor profile.
BV: Is there a typical visitor? Are you getting a lot of
families? Are you getting a lot of high affluent cou-
ples? What are you normally seeing?
HARRIS:
It’s seasonal. In high season, you’ll see very
affluent couples traveling. In the summer, it’s tradition-
ally families and that’s when we give the best deals
in terms of vacation packages. In the fall, again, it’s
skewed back to couples traveling, so dual income, no
kids; you’ll see a lot of travel there. We also see groups
also traveling together – friends – we call this travel
behavior “togethering.” They may not necessarily be
family, but they’re traveling as a group. It’s definitely
very distinctly seasonal. We embrace the family mar-
ket because of the variety of activities available in the
Cayman Islands. Our waters are beautiful and crystal
clear. A lot of the locations offer very shallow water,
so it’s very safe for kids to play on the water’s edge,
while parents are also sunbathing and enjoying the
beach. Really and truly there’s a mix, but again distinct
seasons for our visitor profiles, in terms of household
income or the dynamic of travel, whether that be multi-
generational family, or couples.
L: Talk about your biggest challenges. You men-
tioned the upgrades/development projects that you
all are involved in, or an audience to. What are some
of the main needs of the islands – what do the Cay-
man Islands need to maintain their spot and even
boost traffic moving forward?
HARRIS:
In the short term, our main concern is the vis-
itor experience. We are at capacity and quite frankly,
we’ve exceeded the capacity of Owen Roberts Interna-
tional Airport in Grand Cayman. At every touch point we
have to be very much over-communicative to our visi-
tor to ensure they know where they’re going in terms
of queues and entry-exit processing. This means the
Cayman Islands must continue to focus on customer
service to ensure that lines are managed, staffing is
adequate at various touch points like customs and im-
migration, porters, taxi dispatchers and even the sup-
ply of public transportation vehicles to ensure that we
are able to fully handle the visitor arrival traffic. I’m
the chairman of the Public Transportation Board and
a very major decision that was made last year was to
open the supply. The supply had been frozen since
2006, where we were experiencing an over-supply,
and 2006 was one of the highest recorded years for
cruise visitors. Since then, 2014 positioned itself as
a great opportunity to increase employment and en-
trepreneurship in the form of tour operators and taxi
drivers. The Public Transportation Board was able to
open the supply to feed the demand at the airport, the
cruise port and overall for visitors getting around the
island, enjoying entertainment at night. Certainly the
visitation was felt in all sectors of tourism and we’ve
been assessing the visitor cycle to deliver on a positive
experience.
BV: Obviously, the customers that you’re dealing
with have many options available to them for vaca-
tioning, how much competition is there between the
Caymans and other destinations in the Caribbean
TOURISM
