EDITORIAL

The Beauty and Soul of Cayman Is Not Only At Sea

Thursday, July 1, 2004

To observe from the outside, as journalists are sometimes forced to do, is to get the impression that there are forces of camps within our tourism industry with different views of direction.

On the one hand the often proclaimed intention of the Department of Tourism (DoT) to present the panorama of “things Caymanian” and, on the other hand, the inclination among some areas of the private sector to focus narrowly on the special-interest specific at the expense of the whole.

While there are exceptions, one such area where this myopia can be seen is in the watersports industry with some operators clearly convinced, and willing to proclaim it loudly whenever the subject comes up, that Cayman’s tourism appeal is in the pristine waters and renowned dive sites with which we are blessed.

Those in the watersports industry seem to feel that this is the only area on which the emphasis on advertising, marketing and packaging must be placed and that while the DoT can chat about the “other stuff”, it’s the diving that drives Cayman’s tourism engine.

This contradiction, or even rift, is not apparent; it is real, and it is a fundamental policy wrench that our Minister for Tourism must actively address. There are many clear examples of pervasive notion, two of which we will address at this time.

The current newsletter of the Cayman Islands Tourism Association (CITA) carries a call for photographers/ videographers to create a slideshow or video clip of “the Cayman Islands underwater world” with the top four selections being shown at the International Film Festival in January 2005.
On one level this is a commendable effort by CITA, but on another level we must ask why the presentation is confined to the underwater world. Shouldn’t such a presentation, in such a forum, be showing the entire spectrum of what Cayman has to offer visitors?

One would think it appropriate that a slideshow or video for that forum should include the array of attributes that this country has to offer visitors, particularly since today’s visitor, as we have been told so many times, has very varied interests.

The obsession with watersports is again starkly reflected in the series of paintings currently on display on the walls of the departure area of Owen Roberts International Airport, with every one of them an underwater scene. Nowhere in that one-dimensional display (the work, by the way, of a single artist) do we get a hint of the scores of other aspects of Caymanian life, of the Caymanian people, or the Caymanian ways upon which many visitors to these shores remark.

Where, for example, is a painting of a Tortuga sunrise, or Hog Sty Bay at night, of Cayman Brac’s unique bluff, or our rambling Botanic Park? Why can’t we have visitors, as they are leaving, getting a last look at the Spotts coastline, or a party at Royal Palms, or one of the friendly Caymanian faces we refer to in the tourism brochures? Visitors stop every day to take pictures of fish being sold on our waterfront; one would think that a painting of that scene in our departure lounge would strike a chord with those visitors.

It goes without saying that such a panoramic look at Caymanian life would also resonate strongly with people who live here. Apart from the varied visual effect it would create, it would serve to remind us that what we are leaving behind is more than blue water and yellowfin tuna.

The Cayman panorama contains many more aspects than just those on and below our clear blue waters, and as we struggle to maintain some sort of cultural identity in the midst of such a multi-cultural population, which speaks volumes, our art should reflect more than just soulless marine life.

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