Not so Hot Travel Stats

The Cayman Island government just published the February travel stats -- not so good. Air travel was down 12.8% from a year-ago. Travel had been down 9-11% over the last several months. Cruise arrivals was down 22.3%, which is worse than the 17% decline in January and the 9.5% decline last year. Unfortunately the world economic slump is having an impact.

Great news if you are considering a Cayman vacation. On Delta, air fairs are about 50% off and hotels are making great deals. Book at CaymanIsBest.com.

4th Quarter Cayman Travel Down 11%

In 2007 air arrivals were up 9.1% from 2006 and arrivals came close to the level set in 2003, easily surpassing travel levels from 2004-2006. Despite record fuel prices and a U.S. recession, arrivals were up 9.8% through August and monthly had increased over the prior year for 16 consecutive months and 35 of the last 36 months. Yet beginning in September 2008, traffic began to lag as the worldwide economy slowed. For the last four months of 2008, traffic was down 11% and for all of 2008, air traffic increased only 3.9%. It’s tough to know what 2009 will bring, but all indications are that air travel in 2009 will be down 5-10% from 2008 levels.

TOURIST AIR ARRIVALS BY MONTH

Month	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Jan	25,689	9,601	20,163	23,726	25,845
Feb	32,022	13,202	25,004	27,947	30,380
Mar	37,248	18,810	31,493	35,146	38,425
Apr	33,903	15,423	28,403	27,003	29,978
May	25,502	12,061	21,172	23,427	25,722
Jun	26,890	14,008	24,251	25,837	27,971
Jul	33,118	16,610	24,256	26,895	30,008
Aug	23,191	11,917	18,064	19,481	21,629
Sep	4,982	8,494	10,155	11,457	10,330
Oct	1,968	11,104	14,634	15,102	14,710
Nov	4,215	14,979	22,276	25,227	19,731
Dec	11,201	21,592	27,386	30,255	28,150
TOTAL	259,929	167,801	267,257	291,503	302,879

Thoughts on St. Kitts / Nevis

Just got back from St. Kitts Saturday evening -- great trip. The medical school that we have been working on for a year has now been approved the the Prime Minister has signed the documents. We are off and running. Had the opportunity to walk portions of the old sugar cane land that we will buy from the government for the school. I'm impressed by the government's desire to move the economy from sugar to services. The island seems to be making great progress.

Why am I writing about St. Kitts in a CaymanIsBest blog? Simple -- while St. Kitts is beautiful and relatively undeveloped, for what most baby boomers want from our island get away, it doesn't come close to Grand Cayman. Air service is much less frequent - not as many good restaurants -- not as many quality inns, etc.

We also took a boat over to Nevis (about a 35 minute ride) -- which is the home of the Four Seasons resort and several nice private resorts that used to be sugar plantations. Nevis is a great place to get away -- very quiet, a little more upscale than St. Kitts. The Premier of Nevis is working hard to use the island's natural volcano to create geothermal energy -- very impressive project.

I'm impressed with both islands and their respective governments. Yet if I'm going to live on an island -- as contrasted with vacationing -- then I continue to prefer Grand Cayman.

Talk with you soon -0--

Jeff

New Look for CaymanIsBest Blog

Hope you like it -- we've completely renovated our Blog. Now it is integrated into the CaymanIsBest.com web site -- which is filled with great information about the Cayman Islands, along with special reports on working on Grand Cayman, how to get permanent residency in the Cayman Islands and our how-to guide for buying real estate on the islands.

We love the Cayman Islands, and hope you are able to get there soon.

All the best,

Jeff