Email

Print

So, when we heard FECTAB was having a press conference today - we thought it would be to say thanks. But, while there was a little of that - there was much more of what FECTAB has become famous for: lamenting the increasingly difficult commercial landscape in the cruise sector. Here's more:...

Tom Greenwood, President - FECTAB
"And this represent a victory not for FECTAB okay, not for this one and that one; it represents a victory for the movement of Belizean humanity."

David Almendarez, FANTASEA Belize
"I'd like to remind the Belizean public that this is not a pardon, this is just a stay of execution. The stay of execution will end December 31st. We are calling on NICH and the powers that be that we meet immediately or as soon as possible, so come January 1st, we are not running around with our heads off."

Jules Vasquez reporting
They will now approach NICH to find a working compromise:

David Almendarez
"We can allow the kids to come and the parents sign a waiver and they accept that they are taking their kids in. You need to bear in mind that the way we are doing cave tubing right now - we haven't just started doing this yesterday, that's the way we've been doing it for years. It's been a family adventure for years. We are just counting on the government to sit and meet and to find... I am pretty sure this can be adjusted and be fixed."

And they are asking for uniform application of the regulations:

Yhony Rosado, Cave-tubing.com
"If it's the book that they want to put through us, I will go with the flow - I will go with the book. If they don't want to go the right way which is to appeal the book and they want to push the book in January, let them give us some answers how we can go to Dark Night to do tours because Dark Knight is an archaeological site of ours."

Tom Greenwood
"I can't put it into my head; how do you have 4 scenarios? Dark Night, Nohoch Che'en, Jaguar Paw and Hummingbird Highway and only at where the local enterprises - we have all these controls, we have all these regulations put in place and nothing happen on the other three."

But even if that is solved, FECTAB and their COLA brethren are still bitterly angry about Dark Night and their private caves:

David Almendarez
"How can a company gets three years unprecedented access to your archaeological site that no one else can do in this country?"

Geovanni Brackett, President COLA
"This sweetheart deal that has been given to Dark Night, we heard rumors of being 75 years, they said 3 years. But whether it is three years or one year, that deal in our view is vile, obscene and vulgar and should have never been created."

David Almendarez
"Imagine, a foreigner can come to Belize, and these caves have so many artifacts and jewel untold. I am sure NICH doesn't have everything documented. How can you entrust something so sacred to a private entity to create unfair competition on your own people?"

These operators are feeling the pinch because Carnival Cruise Line is running a ruthless price war against them:

Yhony Rosado, Cave-tubing.com
"They will give to their guests 20% off if they book with us local operators in Belize and if they can prove that they are booking with us cavetubing.com, cavetubingrus, cavetubing.bz, or whatever and then they go back with the form, they will get the same tour with 20% less. The cave that we have done for many years which is the largest, the most beautiful one, the most relaxing one, the most guarded one by BTB, NICH and this government - it is selling right now for $35, $25 per person. I am standing today blaming our government. Governments meaning both of them; the blue and the red, to protect our industry because we are in a serious situation whereby we have seen individual personal business drop down to almost to 40%."

And now these operators are running on very small margins:

Yhony Rosado, Cave-tubing.com
"Because Belize is so beautiful, Belize is the jewel, Belize have oil, Belize have wildlife, Belize have jungle/rainforest, Belize have the most beautiful caves in the world and we are broke."

David Almendarez
"We notice every day from the time Yhony and Tom started, the pie is shrinking. We will fight and we end up in jail, whatever we have to do to protect our piece of the pie - we will fight. And if it means we stand up alone, or in a crowd, whatever it takes, the government of Belize must realize that we are here and we are here to stay."

Yhony Rosado, Cave-tubing.com
"The cruise ship, they know how to run the business; you are either with us or you will get mashed up. I will get mashed up, they will run over me and they will have to kill me, I will not work with them."

Presently a tour of the Nohoch Che'en cave can cost as little as $35 US dollars, whereas it used to sell for three times that two years ago.