Cayman Islands Contends with Cruise Call Decline

by Brian Major
Last updated: 8:15 AM ET, Wed July 24, 2024

Cruise tourism to the Caribbean and the Bahamas is sailing along at record levels, but not every regional destination is receiving its share of the wealth.

The Cayman Islands is struggling to contend with a fast-changing cruise environment that frowns on transporting guests ashore via tender boats fewer than four years after local voters defeated a referendum to construct the country’s first fixed cruise ship pier.

Cayman Islands cruise ship visits have declined sharply since 2022. The downward trend is expected to continue, with visits to the destination declining by half in the next two years as cruise lines opt for ever-larger ships that require fixed piers.

Using cruise line data, Cayman Ministry of Tourism officials expect the country to host 746,000 cruise ship visitors this year, half of the 1.4 million who sailed to the destination in 2022, according to a June 10 Cayman Compass report.

The Cayman Islands’ expected 2024 cruise arrivals are 60 percent below the 1.84 million shipboard passengers who visited in 2019.

Cruise-reliant Cayman Islands businesses are feeling the impact. Chris Kirkconnell, vice president of operations at jewelry retailer Kirk Freeport, which has three outlets in the capital George Town, says he’s pivoted his business model and staff levels in response to the decline in cruise traffic.

“Everyone in the [local cruise tourism] industry saw the reduction coming and the cruise lines warned that it was going to happen,” Kirkconnell told the Cayman Compass. Covid-related global travel shutdowns, he said, hastened the process.

The Cayman Islands was also among the last Caribbean destinations to re-open to cruise ship travelers post-pandemic, resuming calls in March of 2022.

Kenneth Bryan Cayman Islands tourism minister

In 2020, Cayman residents voted down a referendum to build a fixed cruise pier in George Town, citing environmental concerns tied in part to dredging of the harbor. Officials in the current administration have publicly vowed not to construct a cruise pier.

For their part, the largest cruise operators say they will continue to sail away from Caribbean destinations that lack fixed piers and port facilities.

“We do not like to tender, said Wendy McDonald, Royal Caribbean International’s regional vice president, government relations, during a June seminar at the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) Caribbean Week conference.

“The bigger our ships grow [lessens] the amount of time you have in the destination or [to travel to] ports in other destinations,” McDonald said, “because it’s difficult to tender 3,000 people from a ship that carries 6,500 people. By the time we get the [disembarked] it’s time to get back on the ship.”

“[Tendering] is not the safest means of getting our guests on and off the ship, added Marie McKenzie, Carnival Corp.’s senior vice president, government and destination affairs.

“Even if we can [tender], the weather can challenge that opportunity,” she said. “So we have to cancel the call and we have guests that are unhappy on the ship. There are many reasons [not to tender].”

McKenzie added that even smaller, non mega-vessel operators across many cruise fleets, including ancillary brands of Royal Caribbean and Carnival, are circumspect when piers are removed from the guest landing equation.

“Even with the smaller ships, there are challenges that come into play,” she said. “It’s just not an efficient operation. If we can choose an itinerary that does not have tendering, regardless of the size of the ship, it is our preference to do that.”

Cruise operators have long encouraged Cayman Islands officials to build a cruise pier in George Town and strongly supported the defeated 2020 referendum. The Cayman Islands’ geographic location makes the destination a key port of call on western Caribbean itineraries.

Kenneth Bryan, the Cayman Islands tourism minister, admitted in a 2022 Cayman Islands Tourism Association gathering that cruise calls were set to decline, saying reductions in visits by Royal Caribbean and Carnival were “the reality and it is not something we should be surprised about.”

Bryan said his government has held discussions with other cruise operators, including MSC Cruises, about calling at the destination and anticipated current cruise schedules would be maintained.

“My recommendation to the Minister is to move [a new cruise pier referendum] along as quickly as possible so that we can get a pier built in Cayman,” McDonald of Royal Caribbean said as Bryan sat in the audience at the June CTO gathering.

“So that when Jamaica and other islands ask, “Why aren’t we getting more calls?’ we can say, ‘It’s coming,’ she said. “It’s all about the tendering process.”

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