Up Front
Prepared to soar
The news that she was being considered tohead up the Cayman Islands' Department of Tourism's United Statesoffice, in a sense "surprised" her, Pilar Bush said,because she "did not expect the opportunity to become available."
Pilar, who for four years has been the VicePresident for Sales and Marketing at Cayman Airways, will leavethat post on 2nd February, to become, by the end of the month,US Director of Sales and Marketing in the DOT's Miami office.
"I think it's come at a good time,"Pilar said of the move, and the Memorandum of Understanding, whichformalises her appointment.
"There's certainly a lot more thatI could do at Cayman Airways, a lot more that could be developed,but until such time as the country is clear and has given CaymanAirways a new mandate, there's a limit to how much more we coulddo."
Yet, if the opportunity to market Cayman'stourism product from the DOT's Miami office has been surprising,there is also a sense in which she is ready for it, Pilar noted.
In an interview a few days ago, a composed,yet confident Pilar looked ahead to her new role, and reviewedher tenure at Cayman Airways, which she said has prepared herfor the next big step.
"When I look at the job, I think thatwhat I have done at Cayman Airways for the last four years perhapshas been the best preparation I could ask for," she said,noting that the demands of the job at CAL represent a microcosmof what will be required to market the islands' tourism.
"When I went into Cayman Airways itwas to be part of a corporate turnaround; we identified that whereour company was and where our company needed to be successful- there was a gap. So we set out to understand that gap; and thenwe set out to assess where we were and what do we had to do internallyand externally to gear ourselves to bridge the gap and have acompetitive advantage," she recalled.
With responsibility for the airline's marketingand business planning, Pilar says that the first thing she andher team had to do was to identify its product.
"In the airline business, it is basicallytaking someone from point A to point B at a specific time at theright price. So we had to go back and make sure that we had theright schedule. It doesn't matter if we were going to Miami at$99 at 3 o'clock in the morning; nobody is going to go. So ithad to be the right product at the right time at the right price."
Then came the "long road", to"get the infrastructure right," Pilar recalled. Thatinfrstructure constitutes pricing, scheduling and making the rightnumber of seats available at the right price.
"So I started by doing things likeinfrastructural clean-up, and also getting the organisation ready,including having the right skills in the right place," shesaid.
She recounted that when she started at CALthere were two people in the marketing department; pricing wasdone through reservations, and inventory controls in Miami.
"Nobody did advertising; so we hadto build a capacity. "Building "the machinery"Pilar said, took time - about six months -- required new peopleand had to erode a culture of "this is the way we've doneit for 20 years."
"So we did that and then we went toour business partners and looked at who we were doing businesswith." This included an examination of how resources wereused, commensurate with the returns from each of the airline'ssales channels.
"Within the first year we identified that we had nine saleschannels but there were some very productive channels that weignored. We really took for granted what Cayman Airways own officesproduced in terms of the revenue stream. We took our ticket officesand call centres and local travel agents for granted. Local travelagents deliver a significant amount of revenue to Cayman Airways.Today they are a very important client of ours and they get treatedas one of our partners.
"We spent a lot of time and attentionon one channel who gave us one ninth of our business. We probablyspent 50 percent of managerial time, staff time and resourceson that one channel. One of the things I'm interested in seeingis, do we do the same thing on a larger scale in tourism,"Pilarstated.
That's where, she said, her Cayman Airwaysexperience will help her performance at the DOT and should answerany detractors who might ask, why Pilar for the job.
Even now, Pilar -- who has a Bachelor'sdegree in Economics from Canada's University of Waterloo and hascompleted all requirements for an Executive MBA from ConcordiaUniversity (also in Canada) -- is already focusing her thinkingon the new job.
As she defined it, "the job in theUS is to interpret the global strategy. So the Cayman Islandsin their head office determine, based on what the people of theCayman Islands want, and what the tourism offering on island is,"she says citing some of those as dive, water sports, and an evolvingheritage tourism, in addition to a being a unique, quiet placeto get away to.
She noted that the United States marketis an important one for the Cayman Islands. "The majorityof the Cayman Islands visitors come from the US and that's logical,given proximity, population size, disposable income, and thatthey seem to like the Caribbean," she explained.
According to Pilar, "the position there(in the US) of director for marketing and sales is a positionwith responsibility for making sure that you generate that demandand making sure that the visitors that we seek to attract, arealigned with the product that we have to offer and that we doso in sufficiently not large numbers to sustain the Cayman Islands'businesses, but not go so far as to create infrastructural problems.
"It's finding that balance betweenhow do we get the right types of people in the right numbers,spread over the right time."
Of her own role she said it is "tohelp the on-island businesses be successful by bringing the righttypes of visitors at the right time."
And the challenge? "We're not the onlywarm weather destination and that there are others offering differentthings, there are others who offer the same things, and positionthemselves as offering it better," Pilar points out. "Thereare people who offer the same thing at a different price -- atleast there is a different value perception; so the job is really,in my mind, is to get the product sold in sufficiently large numbersto keep their businesses sustainable."
It is not a task that seems to daunt Pilar,who confesses to a work ethic that says "you give 120 percent."It is an example, she said, has been set by her parents, Lloydand Amanda Bush. "I hope I have taken on the best of bothof them," she said.
Pilar understands, and speaks with facilityabout the dynamics of selling travel - not as a commodity, butas a whole experience - from her Cayman Airways days.
As yet, she will not comment on what isneeded in the islands' tourism product, preferring instead tostudy the "whole array" before commenting.
She noted however that it was important"to diversify the base from which we draw visitors,"thereby spreading the risks, even though the US will always remainan important market.
She underscored the importance of DOT andCayman Airways continuing to work together as the important partnersthey are. The parallel between the two is clear, Pilar stated."Because we're an island destination, the same nine channelsthat sell the airline seats are exactly the nine channels thatwill sell the country."
Looking ahead, Pilar opines that the Internetwill have a significant role to play in marketing the islands'tourism product - both in terms of creating awareness and publicity,and in converting to sales.
She also identified part of the missionof her new job as getting more Caymanians involved at the DOT,in a similar way to Cayman Airways' policy of encouring Caymanianstudents abroad to intern at its offices, or at the airport.
She noted that the scope of the DOT job"is in many ways somewhat smaller that what I had at CaymanAirways," in that "DOT doesn't have to build the product;it just has to be involved in the feedback from the people whoprovide the product."
She identifies the need to further educateCaymanians about their tourism product. "I think its partof the entire DOT management's role, but I will have a role toplay in that by sharing with them how people perceive us,"Pilar stated.
To questions about Cayman's perceived lackof visibility, for instance, on national television in the US,Pilar cautioned that there needs to be a better understandingof "how we position ourselves and I think that the plan forthat is for key industry partners and the DOT management to sitdown and look at the way that we have positioned ourselves."
She said that at Cayman Airways, there werealso complaints about insufficient advertising. How did Pilaranswer that? "I don't have the ability to compete in termsof resources head to head with Air Jamaica," a highly visibleairline in the US market. "We do what I call stealth marketing- we find a way to our customers, influence their decision topurchase and have them select us. In some cases visibility wasn'tnecessary," she said of the Cayman Airways model.
A similar approach may well work for tourism.Pilar says that rather than talk about visibility, the the issueto look at is result. "Success won't be measured by how visiblewe are; success will be measured by how many of the right typesof people we bring to this island."
How Pilar's own success will be judged,remains to be seen. Yet with her expertise, experience and anobvious quiet confidence, Pilar Bush may well set her own standards,with her beloved Cayman Islands as the beneficiary.