In last night's newscast, we told you about the US Embassy's travel advisory about Belize City sent out in the aftermath of the quadruple murders. Well, it caused some issues for the local tour operators today.
As viewers are aware, the tour operators only make money on the ship days, which happened to be today. But according to those operators we spoke to today, they had mass cancellations of were pre-booked tours because the captains of the 4 ships today made announcements to the guests that Belize City isn't safe. That represents a major loss in earnings for operators - and they weren't happy!
7News spoke to Yhony Rosado of Cavetubing.com who explained the effects of the Dean Street mass murder on his business:
Yhony Rosado - Cavetubing.com
2:00:18 We have been impacted because we got a lot of cancellations this morning stating that the captain on the ships are announcing that if you're not booked with them, you should not come ashore because the city is not safe. That is the announcement, point-blank, made by the captain of the ships. We have got a lot of emails and text messages from our guests."
Daniel Ortiz
"And how many tours have been cancelled so far, sir?"
Yhony Rosado
"About 50% of our tours have been cancelled because we are the freelance tours. There are people who book with us for many factors, finance or different budgets."
Daniel Ortiz
"How many people out here are not going to get anything out of these tours that are cancelled?"
Yhony Rosado
"As the cameras can show behind me, there are a lot of us who are going to be without jobs today."
Geovanni Brackett - Plus TV
"Are you hoping that sometime soon, order can be restored, that things can get back to normal?"
Yhony Rosado
"Well, we have already emailed our guests and let them know that it is not the entire city that's dangerous, it was only a part of Belize. We are telling them that we can safely go through our tours, and the BTB has sent out messages to us that we should not do any city tours today. We are doing our best to protect our guests, as to protect or lives and livelihood. We have to protect our guys, our business, and everything else. So, if we know that a part of Belize have a problem, we don't go there. So, nobody has to send an announcement, and what the ship is doing is bit dangerous because they are sending their guests to the city, but they are telling our guests not to come ashore. So, it's a bit contradictory."
As you heard briefly in the interview, the tour operators were also discontent because the captains didn't hassle those guests who book tours in Belize through the cruise ship, and sent them ashore without any difficulty while those who booked with 3rd parties were discouraged from entering the city.
Our newsroom also contacted other tour operators who said that they were aware that the incident could have these effects on their business.
But, that's not the only problem that the operators are facing. According to international reports, the cruise company, Carnival, has cancelled several port calls to Belize due to, quote, "growing congestion".
The Carnival Legend skipped a port call to Belize in December, and Carnival Glory will skip 9 calls to Belize for the rest of the season - representing the loss of thousands of over ten thousand visitors.
The congestion they're referring to is with the tenders - the boats that bring the tourists to shore. According to international news reports, Carnival says that quote, "(Belize's) tender capacity is not able to effectively handle the increased volume of guests without creating long delays and limiting…time ashore. Despite our best efforts, we have been unable to come to an acceptable agreement with Belize Port Authority regarding this situation."
Those reports say that Carnival is threatening to pull out of the Cayman Islands altogether if a proposed price increase for passenger tendering is approved.
Belize and Cayman are the only two Caribbean Cruise destinations that do not have a berthing facility - meaning a Tourism Village where Cruise Ships can pull right up to shore.
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