The UK delegation visited Cayman between 26 July and 1 August 2006 and Mr Clifford expressed confidence about Cayman's ability to maintain a competitive edge in some areas.

The area he was most confident about was Cayman's cruise tourism.

Mr Clifford first admitted to recognising that Cuba already had nine ports - facilities that would be amenable to cruise shipping.

However, demonstrating that he had already done extensive background work on the topic, he said that he had had discussions with cruise lines - some liners that were not even included amongst those that already had Cayman on their routes.

He said that those currently "non-participating" cruise lines had revealed that it was "very unlikely that they would develop a Cuba itinerary, one like the scheduling in place for Alaska, where that is the only destination on the route."

Mr Clifford said that "geography" was, and would always work, in Cayman's favour in relation to the multi-destination approach to cruise shipping scheduling and routing.

"So any route with Cuba would also include Grand Cayman," he added.

Mr Clifford said that his administration had been thinking about this matter for a long time and made reference to the Manifesto document for the People's Progressive Movement (PPM), which spoke to the issue of "one day Cuba opening up and we need to prepare for that."

The section of the PPM document states: "You can trust the PPM to ...continue to focus on the North American market using more strategic, creative and innovative programmes while, at the same time, significantly increasing our marketing activities in Europe. This will be a strategic move to increase the number of stay over visitors...and, more importantly, to mitigate the impact of the lifting of US sanctions against Cuba which we believe is inevitable in four to eight years' time."

On other areas related to the topic, Mr Clifford demonstrated that a great deal of thought was needed on the matter - especially because of the significant, unknown factors.

In relation to the tourist dollar that comes in to Cayman "by air" - and provides stay over visitors - Mr Clifford carefully went through some details.

He first acknowledged that 82 percent of Cayman's stay over visitors came in from the North American market.

He however said that Cayman had increased its "European Budget" - dedicated to attracting visitors from other parts of the world.

He mentioned plans that linked EU visitors with strategies to counter competition from Cuba: "When Cuba opens up we have measures to take advantage of twin-island destination packages."

He said Cayman had already had discussions with Iberia, Lufthansa, Air France and Virgin Atlantic in this regard.

He said that discussions revolved around Cayman taking advantage of plans that would include Europeans who vacation in the Caribbean for two-week or ten-day periods and want to visit more than one destination.

Speaking generally about the situation in the country's neighbour,  Mr Clifford said Cayman has to prepare for a post-Castro Cuba.

Mr Clifford said he could not speak for other areas such as Immigration, but he made mention of the funding in place to upgrade the Cayman's Marine Unit.

He said he could recall when Cayman had more than 1400 refugees in Tent City.

"We don't want to go back to a situation like that," he added.

Mr Clifford said he did not necessarily share some common views in the international media.

He said, if democracy should flourish in Cuba, there could be "a large percentage of Cubans who have left, wanting to go back for their property. That won't necessarily be a smooth transition."

Mr Clifford also said that leadership under Raul Castro could engage in trade with the US - changing conditions enough for Cubans to want to stay there and discouraging a mass exodus from the Island.