The recently announced closure of Grand Cayman’s Butterfly Farm, seems to us to have implications far beyond the mere closing down of yet another local business due to the economic situation.

The paucity of tourist attractions in the Cayman Islands beyond the usual sun, sea, sand and shopping itinerary has long been a source of local concern and the fact that, according to its proprietors, the Butterfly Farm – which was brought here through the vision of the late Norberg Thompson, one of Cayman’s most respected and versatile businessmen – has in the past attracted a high number of visitors demonstrated the truth of the adage “if we build it, they will come.”

The fact that visitor numbers at the Butterfly Farm are down by such an amount to force closure must mean one or both of two things, each of which by itself should be troubling to those responsible for the maintenance and promotion of our tourism product.

First, overall stay-over visitor numbers must be down by a significantly greater extent than the typical “feel good” official press releases would have us believe. Second, if the visitors are in fact still coming, then they must be unwilling or unable to spend money on local attractions, which seems to us unlikely given that we are a relatively expensive destination in the first place and people spending several thousands of dollars to travel and stay here are unlikely to be sufficiently financially constrained to economise on spending a few dollars on local attractions and entertainment.

However, the most telling comment of all from the Butterfly Farm proprietors is in relation to their similar facilities in other places in the Caribbean.

The Grand Cayman location is one of four such farms operated by them; the other three are located in Aruba, St Martin and St Thomas.

According to one of the owners, Tony Cox, “This year we are having our best year ever in those locations, because tourism is the primary industry on those islands and occupancy is usually close to 100 percent in Aruba.”

The business model is reportedly the same in all four locations but, for some reason, the Grand Cayman establishment is suffering whereas the others are not.

We suggest that the reason(s) for this disparity is something that needs to be researched by local tourism stakeholders and corrective measures formulated, if practicable, as a matter of great urgency.

In the meantime, this is yet another example of how an immediate and meaningful injection of liquidity into the local economy by the government would have been invaluable to local businesses to help them survive the current economic crisis, whether in terms of loans or effective measures to stimulate consumer spending.

However, the government itself is broke and cannot even pay its local suppliers so it seems to us that the situation is dire indeed, especially when the only way out (if it is indeed a way out) the government is willing to take is to tax the poor and disadvantaged ... while pampering the rich and high net worth players.

Clearly, tourism must unquestionably be in pretty bad shape right now – perhaps worse than publicly revealed or realised – and there is potentially even worse to come.

For quite some time we have been warning of the likely impact the opening up of Cuba to the American tourism market would have on other Caribbean destinations, including the Cayman Islands.

Although this eventuality seems to be inevitable – the only remaining question being when – seemingly little or no preparations are being made by our own tourism stakeholders in anticipation of this event or, hopefully, to take advantage of it.

If it were needed, another reminder of the implications of Cuba opening up were recently addressed by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) in an article republished in this newspaper, entitled “Prospects for a resurgent Cuban tourism market”.

According to COHA, a flood of American tourists may soon be unleashed on Cuba as a bipartisan coalition grows in the US Congress in support of the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act. Action on this bill will expedite the arrival of an estimated one million tourists within the first year after the travel ban is lifted.

As we have pointed out in the past, Havana, once known as the Las Vegas of the Caribbean, was a major hub for American tourists in the 1950s, enabling Cuba to attract roughly twenty percent of the Caribbean’s total visitor pool. Cuba’s share of Caribbean tourism is still around 10 percent.

Considering that US tourists account for 52 percent of all tourists in the Caribbean, this significant gap can be almost entirely attributed to the US travel embargo. An end to these sanctions will likely be the catalyst necessary for significant growth of the Cuban tourism industry.

At that point, what are the chances of our own tourism industry escaping the fallout, thus compounding an already dire situation?