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Revision as of 14:15, 1 February 2007

GoToCayman.com - News from Cayman (ISSN: 1744-7690)

January 2007

The tourism statistics for 2006 have been released and are available at http://www.caymanialands.ky/statistics. There were 267,257 air arrivals throughout the year, up on the figure for 2005 be nearly 100,000. This is still way short of the high of 354,087 in 2000. The average occupancy rate for the year for hotels was 59.4% and for condos and apartments was 40.7%. Whilst the figure for hotels was up on the figure of 55.8% for 2005, apartments and condos were down from a rate of 46% in 2005. Both of the current occupancy figures are a long way down from the highs of 73.1% (hotels) and 52.3% (apartments and condos) in 1998.

There were a record 1,930,136 cruise visitors in 2006 - the highest figure to date.

At the end of December a nine-foot long crocodile was captured alive at Old Man Bay in East End in Grand Cayman. It is now being cared for at Botswain's Beach. Investigations are taking place to determine the origins on the croc.

The Europa, a small luxury ship with around 350 passengers visited Cayman Brac. The Europa is the first cruise ship to stop at Cayman Brac for over five years.

Statistically speaking, Cayman's roads are getting safer. Roads Minister Arden McLean revealed in 2005 there were only 16 accidents for every 1,000 vehicles in 2005 compared to 129 accidents for every 1,000 vehicles in 1971, 104 accidents for every 1,000 vehicles in 1980 and 61 accidents for every 1,000 vehicles in 1990. In the same time period the number of vehicles has increased from 2,002 vehicles on Cayman's roads in 1971, compared to a total of 31,466 vehicles in 2005. There were 14 road-traffic fatalities in 2005 but this was lower than the 21 deaths recorded in 1985 and the 20 deaths recorded in 1990. McLean promised to meet with road-safety campaigners to discuss plans for "graduated" driving licences, under which young people must pass a series of tests over a number of months before gaining a full licence. He is also looking at increasing the fines for traffic offences.

On the water, there were 10 watersports deaths last year, seven involving snorkeling and three from scuba diving. Eight of the victims were from the US and only one was younger than 48. Coroner’s juries have not issued rulings on the 2006 incidents, so no official cause of death has been given. However, the situation is being discussed within the watersports industry. As Rod McDowll, operations manager of Red Sail Sports explained "You will have accidents. There's nothing you can do about a guy who has a heart attack,” said Rod McDowall, operations manager of Red Sail Sports. “The unfortunate thing is that it appears – and I don't know the details – but it appears that a couple of the latest related deaths may have been avoided."

In the last incident of the year a 55–year–old woman from Louisiana named Louise Gales was taken on board a snorkel tour boat after suffering difficulty in the water off Barkers in the North Sound. Mrs. Gales was not breathing when she was taken from the water. Tour boat passengers tried to revive her using CPR. None of the tour boat crew members knew CPR. Stephen Broadbelt, who chairs the Water sports Committee of the Cayman Islands Tourism Association, said sometimes water sports, diving in particular, get a bad rap. "Debate is certainly on–going within the industry. But you know, just because somebody was having a round of golf and they had a heart attack, it's not considered a golfing accident. But somebody's out on a vessel and they have a heart attack…and for the most part it's a death of natural causes. It still gets called a diving accident or a snorkelling accident."