I took this photo (see below) Saturday (6 July) thinking it’s odd that the Department of Tourism or whoever is in charge of this sign registered caymanisland.ky instead of caymanislandS.ky. Turns out they didn’t, caymanislands.ky forwards to visitcaymanislands.com. However, the URL printed on the physical sign takes you to the “future home of something quite cool” – a parked page by whoever owns the domain. The sign is across from the museum in town, and I’m sure plenty of tourists take photos in front of it so it’s probably a good idea to have the right address on there. How does something like this happen? And who at DoT do we have to speak to, to fix this?
Auntie’s answer: There were actually two signs with that mistake; the other one was by the Royal Watler Cruise Terminal just down street from the sign that you photographed. And, yes, I used the past tense to describe those signs.
I reached out to the Department of Tourism the Monday (8 July) after I received your email, and a week later (Monday, 15 July) a DoT official confirmed that the signs had been corrected (see below photo). I cannot say for sure that set a record for response time, but I do want to acknowledge the speed with which the department dealt with the issue.
The official also explained that the signs were neither designed nor owned by the DoT, but the department reached out to the owners the same day I contacted them, and said, “We appreciate the reader for bringing it to our attention.”
I was not able to find out the name of the company that produced the signs, however, but am happy to speculate that this happened simply because someone wasn’t paying enough attention. Whatever the reason for the mistake, I think you should give yourself a pat on the back for being the catalyst to get it corrected.
Old welcome sign (above left) next to corrected sign
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3mln+ visitors a year, and there is still nobody in DoT that’s thought to regularly audit our show to improve our visitor experience as a matter of occupational competence. No exit surveys, no suggestions box, nothing.
They have suggestion boxes and exit surveys. It would be great if people actually checked that something was happening before assuming that there isn’t something in place when it is in place.
That’s a great point! BUT! Are the people DoT reading the comments?
I sent this comment to Auntie in September 2017. The sign was like this for years.
So who owns the signs? Where is the incompetence?