Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands (15 November, 2018) The Ministry of Tourism has today released details of its spending on the cruise berthing facility public education campaign, which began in August, 2018.

Responding to a Freedom of Information request, the Ministry confirmed that a total of CI$ 25,292.50 had been spent on advertising for the ‘Support our Tourism’ campaign for the period August through to the end of November, 2018. This expenditure includes a series of full page advertisements in both print newspapers, as well as radio ads on a variety of local stations. Also included in the cost was the creation of a facebook page and website which serves as a central repository for all of the reports and studies related to the project to date.

The Tourism Ministry’s Chief Officer, Stran Bodden explained that the rationale behind the campaign was to provide the public with information about the project and make accessing the reports easier. “Since 2013 a tremendous amount of research, data and other relevant information regarding the cruise berthing project has been posted to the Ministry of Tourism’s website, but over time it has become harder to locate, in between other Ministry related information. We therefore wanted to provide the public with a more convenient, central location for retrieving the cruise berthing project information.”

In addition to the advertising expenditure, Mr. Bodden stated that the Ministry engaged Fountainhead, a local communications company, for a period of six months at a cost of CI$5,000 per month to assist with developing and running the campaign, as the Ministry does not have the resources available internally to fully take on this responsibility.

“We have a single member of staff handling PR, communications and speechwriting for all of the Ministry’s portfolios and felt it was prudent to provide additional support so that a high level of public engagement could be consistently maintained for the duration of the campaign. Consequently ‘Support our Tourism’ is being administered by the Ministry’s PR Manager along with her normal daily duties and support from Fountainhead is included within their contracted scope of works. The Ministry is not incurring any other costs or salaries with respect to the campaign to date.

To access information related to the cruise berthing project, please visit the Support our Tourism website or connect with us on facebook at www.facebook.com/supPORTourTourism.

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IMAGE: rendering of proposed piers FILE