Concern is mounting on the Placencia Peninsula over the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding that's being tabled by a Cruise Developer called Belize Island Holding Limited, which is the local incarnation of Norwegian Cruise Line. They want to build a cruise port on Harvest Caye, south of the Peninsula Peninsula, after the proposal for Crawl Caye fell through.
In the agreement, Norwegian agrees to invest $50Million US dollars and employ no more than 25% foreign staff. In exchange Government will make the usual giveaways, a 25-year concession, duty exemptions and duty free status, even business tax exemptions.
But the best part for Norwegian is, under the terms of the MOU, they get to keep more than half of the 7 US dollar head tax they collect. The BTB would get one dollar sixty cents US, PACT one dollar and forty cents US and Norwegian would get the rest, 4 USD per person.
But out of PACT and BTB's minority take, they would have to apportion - in the BTB's case - 50 cents per person to a tourism development fund, to be used on southern Belize – thus developing product for the Port owners.
And out of PACT's share, 25 cents US would go to environmental monitoring – which, is not a function of PACT and, opponents argue, is a cost that should be borne by the Port owner, not paid from the head tax.
And that 1.15 cents US PACT stays with is a pittance really, considering that a.) The PACT tax paid by overnight visitors is 3.75 cents US per person and, the Minister recently said in a speech that it would take 20 million US dollars annually to optimally manage Belize's protected areas.
But, as odious as that whole had tax breakdown may seem – we note that it resembles the formula presently in place at Fort Street Tourism Village Cruise Port. That agreement was negotiated well over a decade ago – an indication that, even with the benefit of experience, there's no better deal for Belize, which, veterans have advised us, is more or less the permanent state of affairs between small countries and large cruise lines.
As we understand it, the eight page MOU was crafted out of a set of agreed-upon points between the cruise line and government officials – and the document is now at the Sol Gen's office for vetting. Our information says that Cabinet has approved the terms and conditions, and on Friday Minister of Environment Lisel Alamilla was non – comital about it. Here's what she told us -
Hon. Lisel Alamilla - Ministry of Forestry, Fisheries, Environment
"Yes these projects had been discussed at Cabinet."
Jules Vasquez
"Are we within distance of signing an MOU? There's talk of one circulating."
Hon. Lisel Alamilla
"Jules, as I said earlier when you weren't here was that I will leave the ministry responsible for investment to respond to the question regarding how they're dealing with the investment interest from NCL, from Mr. Finstein and from Puerto Azul."
Jules Vasquez
"Have you given any technical advice on new proposed location?"
Hon. Lisel Alamilla
"We have given - we haven't given a lot yet on Harvest Cay because we still have to do a site visit there. We have raised initial questions as to that project but at this point we are at - 'is Belize interested in this project?' - then we will get into the details of how the environment comes into it."
Today Godwin Hulse, Minister in Charge of the Cabinet Committee on investment did not answer our text messages requesting a comment. As to whether the MOU has been signed, Prime Minister Dean Barrow did text us back: he said he does not know, and referred us to Minister Hulse. Since the MOU calls for the PM's signature, we'll assume it has not been signed.
And so, now public pressure resisting the project is expected to come hard and heavy from overnight tourism interests on the Placencia Peninsula. Their consistent lobby has been that mass cruise tourism will have a disastrous effect on overnight tourism in Placencia. Moreover, they say it is expressly out of line with the Tourism Master Plan and a recent study which was done investigating the subject.
But, there's a plurality of opinion. One Resort Manager we heard from on a BTB sponsored media tour of the south this weekend runs Laru Beya Resort and Villas. He took a much broader view.
Rene Nunez - Manager, Laru Beya
"We seem to have decided that we are a small destination - that we will not build huge properties/hotels in Belize. We will go after the adventurous visitor - the visitor who wants an out of the way experience - that seems to be what we started with. I think what we're facing now is the pressures of growth, that Belize is now well known. Here in Placencia - if you've read any of the letters that the BTIA or the tour operators or anybody has sent - the one line they always include in that letter is that it is 'contrary to our agreed upon plan'; the plan for the Tourism development in Southern Belize and that plan focused on small tourism. I am not prepared to say that I don't want cruise tourism here; I certainly think that if the cruise ship comes to Placencia - our business will have to change. Right now we are protecting turf, those of us in the business know what we're doing right now and so we are very convinced that cruise tourism is going to affect our business negatively, so we don't want it. But we're a country that's growing and maybe we need to think about that."
We haven't done a poll, but from a sampling of overnight interests and the hard of fast position of the Placencia BTIA we'd say Nunez holds the minority opinion, among overnight tourism interests.
It's a story that has legs, as they say, and we'll keep following it.
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