December 2016 | Business View Caribbean

24 25 that, followed by UK/Europe.And certainly what plays a role in that is how easy it is to get to the destination. But we’ve found that there’s certain- ly interest from Latin America.We’re exploring opportunities 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 diver- sify our visitor profile. BVM: Is there a typical visitor? Are you getting a lot of families? Are you getting a lot of high afflu- ent couples? What are you normally seeing? HARRIS: It’s seasonal. In high season, you’ll see very affluent couples traveling. In the summer, it’s traditionally 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.” Theymay not necessarily be family, but they’re traveling as a group. It’s definitely very distinctly seasonal.We embrace the familymarket 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 shallowwater, 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. BVM: Talk about your biggest challenges.You mentioned 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 Cayman Islands need to maintain their spot and even boost traffic moving forward? HARRIS: In the short term, our main concern is the visitor experience.We are at capacity and quite frankly,we’ve exceeded the capacity of Owen Roberts International Airport in Grand Cayman.At every touch point we have to be very much over-communicative to our visitor to ensure they knowwhere they’re going in terms of queues and entry-exit processing.This means the Cay- man Islands must continue to focus on customer service to ensure that lines are managed, staffing is adequate at various touch points like customs and immigration, porters, taxi dispatchers and even the supply 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 verymajor 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 visi- tors. Since then, 2014 positioned itself as a great opportunity to increase employment and entre- preneurship 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 INTERVIEW: ROSA HARRIS