Today was a big day at the tourism village. 5 cruise ships sailed in
this morning, bringing with them as many as 14,000 cruise visitors to Belize
City. It’s not a record arrival but in a year in which tourism arrivals
are down – it was a relief. So how did it go? Well according to the Tourism
Village it went off without a hitch. But did it cure the blues? That’s
what Keith Swift tried to find out.
Keith Swift Reporting,
It was visibly impressive – 5 large cruise ships docked off the coast
of Belize City. That’s five ships with thousands of passengers in just
one day. That is why inside the Tourism Village today it was…
James Nisbet, Fort Point Tourism Village
“Organized chaos, everybody had something to do today.”
And for most people that was earning their share of the tourist dollar, from
the hair braiders right down or up to the Salvation Army which had a kettle
posted inside the village. James Nisbet manages the tourism village.
James Nisbet,
“Rule of thumb is we use about 85% of the ships, I think it was expected
to have 17,000 if we counted total capacity of ships but I think from BTB we
probably had 14,000 passengers in port, on the ships, not necessarily on the
streets of Belize but that is the amount we figured was in today.”
Keith Swift,
“How does the tourism village prepare for days like these?”
James Nisbet,
“Practice, practice, and more practice. On multiple ship days, more
than three and four, there is a lot less things that go wrong simply because
everybody is concentrating totally on what they are supposed to be doing so
it comes as almost as second nature but of course we love to see this many ships.”
But Nisbet says he would prefer one ship per day instead of 5 ships on one
day.
James Nisbet,
“We would all, not only the Tourism Village, but all the people involved
in the industry would like to see two ships everyday for the entire week instead
of having five ships on one day but this is not the first time. It is actually
the fifth or the sixth time we’ve bad more than 4 ships in port for one
day.”
Keith Swift,
“Looking ahead into the season, will there be more days like this?”
James Nisbet,
“Yes I think the schedule has two or three more days that have at
least four ships in the harbour. There are some days that you have four larger
ships and two very small ships and then there are other days that you have five
big ones. Like today we have five big ships but yes there will be a couple other
days in the peak season for that.”
But do more tourists mean more business? Vendors have been complaining.
James Nisbet,
“The chances of more spending happening on a day like this is greater
simply because of the numbers and the activity. If the tourists see more than
five people in a store there are drawn to it a lot more and they interact with
the other guests and if the weather is great, it is almost perfect condition
for spending. They are in paradise, literally in paradise right now.”
Three ships are sailing into tomorrow with passenger capacity of almost
7,000. On December 4th, Carnival’s Miracle which is now the largest cruise
ship in the world will make its maiden voyage to Belize.
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