Cruise Tourism Up

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Cruise ship passenger arrivals are up over 20 percent so far from last year, according to statistics released by the Department of Tourism last week, bringing brisk business to local companies in George Town.

Through the end of March, 631,091 cruise ship passengers have come to shore this year, 100,000 more than in the first quarter of 2003.

March showed an astounding 34.5 percent jump in cruise passengers over the same month of last year, with 230,840 arrivals. That number shattered the previous single-month record for cruise arrivals, set in January of this year, by over 23,000 people.

Cruise arrivals have now set records for the month during the last seven consecutive months, with over one million cruise visitors coming to shore in the past five months alone.

Local businesses in George Town, for the most part, have seen a large jump in sales corresponding to the increase in cruise ship passengers.

“We’ve seen a significant increase in business,” said Captain Bryan Ebanks of Captain Bryan’s Sail & Snorkel, “we have been quite busy for months.”

Captain Bryan said that most of his reservations come directly from the cruise lines, and that there is a large drop off in bookings starting this week, corresponding with the normal off-season drop off of cruise ships calling on Grand Cayman.

Harriet Lott, owner of Caymania Duty Free, said that her store has also enjoyed increased traffic and sales. “It’s still going strong,” she said, “but we expect to see a shift as the summer approaches and less ships come in.”

A downtown Cuban cigar shop, Havana House, has also seen a large boost in sales. “Our business has been up at least 25 percent over last year,” said director James Pineda, who said that approximately three-quarters of the store’s total sales comes from cruise ship passengers.

For businesses that rely on walk-in traffic, however, the benefits of the jump in cruise ship tourism seem to drop off quickly as the distance from Harbour Drive increases. Sally McNamee at Le Classique Shoe and Leather Emporium at Elizabethan Square said she has not noticed much difference in sales. “We’re a little bit better, but not a whole lot.”

Another factor hindering sales to cruise passengers for some businesses is price. “We haven’t seen any increase in business,” said Lydia Powery at Arabus Boutique on Fort Street. “Cruise ship people don’t want to spend any money on the kind of things we have. Last week, we had a 50-70 percent off sales, and they still wanted more off. One cruise ship passenger even wanted us to change all of our prices to US just for them.”

Last year, more than 1.8 million cruise ship passengers came to the Cayman Islands, and in 2004, it is expected the figure will exceed the milestone of two million before the end of the year.

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