COMMENTARY

My Take ... For what it’s worth

Wednesday,  February 22, 2006

(The opinions presented in these articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the Hay family)

I’ve known it for ages that the happy smiley faces in our hospitality industry have been turning sourpuss for some time.

But now it’s official because a bureaucratic Deloitte survey has, in a round-about way, told us so. They call it “poor customer service” but I’m no fool, I can read between the lines! The trouble, as I see it, is that we still sell the Cayman Islands on the strength of our friendliness, telling our visitors that we are filled with happy, smiley, grateful natives when in fact most of the Island’s hospitality workers are imports who will smile, but only for a dollar.

In seven years time or less (depending on the decision of our immigration policy makers), they’re off to another tourist town to show off their Colgate whites for some other currency. I don’t doubt the old-timers are genuine pros in the ‘friendly arena’ but they’re retired now and probably stuck at home minding grandkids and tourists never get to mingle with them any more.

So the question is, does the younger generation of Caymanians need to brush up on its welcoming skills? You bet it does, but there’s more to service than grinning up in someone’s face.

It’s knowing your product and being able to deliver. For far too long we have left our local hospitality workers to scramble around as best they can, to pick up what they can from experience or to copy-cat others without any formal training. Now our Minister for Tourism has brought this to the forefront by announcing that DOT will be pushing for some hands-on and classroom training to upgrade skills in the tourism sector

What is important about these new courses is not its good intentions, we have hordes of those right now; what will be important is that we follow through with what is proposed. I sincerely hope that one of those seminars teach our people not to adopt another country’s accents or spout meaningless insincere catch-phrases because that’s not who we are.

Please don’t have them bid farewell to visitors with ‘have a nice day’; instead tell them to ‘walk good’ or ‘come back soon Chile’ or even warn them to ‘watch out for duppies on the way home’. Most importantly, speak in your Caymanian dialect and accent – that is essentially what makes us stand out from the mass of imported labour.

To have a truly unique product and identity where tourism is concerned is quite simple really… be yourself.

Now let me get to the part about value for money. Consider this. As the story goes, about six years ago, a guest staying at one of the upscale hotels on our 7-Mile strip didn’t mind paying over-the-top for his accommodation and meals but when the bar charged him some ridiculous price for a bottle of Evian water, he totally lost it, checked out early and found cheaper digs on South Church Street. His attitude was that he wasn’t going to get ripped off.

The relevance of repeating this true story is that we need to stop robbing tourists blind. They’re not stupid. There is no future for tourism in Cayman if we do not pay attention to these little details. 

Now back to that Deloitte assessment I was on about earlier. 

Personally I think that the numbers and shortfalls identified in the survey are right on the money. Where I think the entire hospitality industry is to blame is because they have advertised these Islands to be something they are not and subsequently the expectations of visitors are unrealistic.

We have touted ourselves as being top-of-the-line (and we may genuinely feel that way because it’s a personal thing), but in a tourist’s estimation we are not what we had advertised ourselves to be. 

When they arrive and experience the Islands for themselves, we fall short of their expectations as manifested in their disappointments and the subsequent complaints that they make.

Bear in mind all that I’ve said but please take into account the following: Any industry works on the premise that the customer is always right but we all know that’s a bunch of indoctrinated hogwash, yet we go along with it as best we can because the customer is the one with the money!

In defence of ALL our hospitality industry providers I have sometimes found that the more money a person spends, the more they feel entitled to be piggish to those attending to them. Moreover, money does not always go with good manners and self respect. The mob of “the great unwashed” consists of both rich, middling and poor. The Ritz Carlton with all its finery and fancy credo proclaiming “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen”… JUST YOU WAIT!

You will get your share of yahoos because uncouth nouveaux riches are the ones with the dollars today! Wealth may be able to buy first-class air tickets and unlimited spending ability but it can’t buy decorum and good manners.

Let’s just say that over the years I have borne witness to a number of unpleasant heated exchanges between guests and staff and I have to say that there’s not enough money in Cayman’s banks to make me subservient to some of these people. I have a very close relative who used to work in a hotel and you would not believe how much crap she had to swallow; false accusations, the exaggerated complaints and outright lies.

It takes a special individual to grin and bear it and I just don’t possess the genteel art of letting someone go on and on believing they are 100 percent right all the time.

I don’t suffer fools gladly and any exercise in this would be a waste of time… for me anyway.

Tourism is a tough competitive job and Cayman has chosen to do it.

But, at the end of the day, the great delight of going abroad, to me at any rate, is the pleasure of returning home, to be on familiar turf.

Whether I’ve had a good trip or a bad experience… there’s no place like home.

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