Gary Rutty, minister of tourism for the Cayman Islands, talks with Alan Fine of Insider Travel Report about the destination’s “vaCay” campaign, more airlift from the U.S., record visitor arrivals, cruise tourism, island culture and the differences among Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. Rutty details the new hotels in the islands and more resources available for travel advisors. For more information, visit www.visitcaymanislands.com.<br><br>All our Insider Travel Report video interviews are archived and available on our Youtube channel (youtube.com/insidertravelreport), and as podcasts with the same title on: Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, PlayerFM, Listen Notes, Podchaser, TuneIn + Alexa, Podbean, iHeartRadio, Google, Amazon Music/Audible, Deezer, Podcast Addict, and iTunes Apple Podcasts, which supports Overcast, Pocket Cast, Castro and Castbox.

How the Cayman Islands Is Growing with a New Campaign and More

The Insider Travel Report Podcast

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** The Insider Travel Report Podcast

## Transcript

Hey everybody, this is Alan Fine and I'm here with Gary Ruddy, the Honorable Minister of Cayman Islands Department of Tourism. I said that correctly, did I not? You said that, that's what you said. And we're going to talk about what is the vacay philosophy here on Insider Travel Report. Vacation is overrated, overwhelming, and overcrowded. Vacation is over. Welcome to Vacay, only in the Cayman Islands.

Vacay doesn't write itineraries, it rips them up. It doesn't just eat, it savours. Vacay is true time off. Vacay is the vacation vacation wishes it took. Welcome to Vacay, only in the Cayman Islands. What's the vacay philosophy? Vacay philosophy is about basically the vacation after a vacation. You know, everyone goes on a vacation and they say they need to go on a vacation after that vacation.

What we do in Cayman is about relaxation, rejuvenating, just coming down there, enjoying it. You know, Cayman kind, the experience that we have to give and just basically breathe, let loose, and enjoy what we have. But the obvious is we say vacay all the time, but this is Vacay Man. And that's really nice that you coined that. Absolutely. It has a good twist on its words, but at the end of the day, it's the experience that we're going to provide for those coming to visit us. Now, how easy is it to get there? Oh, it's very easy.

We come from Miami, we fly from Cayman Islands, Miami, we have American Miami, we are Tampa, we have Atlanta, Charlotte, New York. And just recently, Cayman Islands had an inaugural flight from Austin, Texas, and that has been a hit. And I've heard, surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, Austin is one of the biggest numbers for you. They really come from Austin. It is. Well, Texas is the number one state as far as traveling to Cayman. And out of that, the Austin area makes up over 10% of the Texas market.

And we have a lot of influential people coming in from Texas and also from the Austin area. And we have some local Caymans because we had sister cities back in the day between, like, say, Port Arthur and Texas. So Texas is near and dear to Cayman. It also gives our locals, you know, an opportunity to explore Texas again. You gave us some numbers. We had a nice lunch here in Manhattan. You gave us some numbers. Let me hear those again. Let's tell them to the travel advisors. So we had a record December, January.

We missed February by a couple hundred because it was a leap year we were comparing to in 2019. They had five Saturdays in 2019. We had four this year, 2026. We had the first March ever with the best March ever and month ever with over 60,000. In fact, we went a little bit over 64,000 air arrivals. April just broke another record. I think March is May is following suit. And the summer is very, very strong in Cayman.

Cayman is a sought-after destination because we're delivering experience and we're delivering the value for visitors and ...

How the Cayman Islands Is Growing with a New Campaign and More

Transcript

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How the Cayman Islands Is Growing with a New Campaign and More

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.