Email

Print

Courtney Weatherburne
"Sir I understand that the schedule shifted or there was a rift in the usual schedule this morning. Along what time did that happen and what exactly did you observe?"

John Pollard - Owner, Big John's Tour and Taxi Company
"About 9 o'clock this morning the flow was pretty easy at this terminal here which is terminal 1. People were coming out to the different tour companies that they came to. Inside we saw the security talking to a guy. The guy he was talking to was one of the managers from inside, a Turkish looking a guy. Immediately after the doors were closed. These doors from terminal 1 were closed. Now, that had affected my business very seriously this morning and if it affects my business it also affects the other 12 tour companies that are out here. These people are playing some dangerous games. If you ask FSTV what's the problem? They're going to point the problem to another company, BTB indirectly. If you ask BTB, BTB is going to say they don't know anything about that. I would like to say this, that Mister Valdemar Andrade, they receive a salary every day. Every two weeks, every month they all receive their salary at BTB. Out here when I come out here daily, when all the operators come out here daily, we do not know what we are going to receive as yet. When the book tour comes and we cannot get the book tours because these doors are closed and they divert these people to go to terminal 2 without informing us that these changes happen this morning. It hurts us pretty good. It was the security from inside of FSTV who close the doors, they didn't say anything. They close the door. The diversion happened from there and they point towards terminal 2 and told the people inside you have to divert and go to terminal 2."

Courtney Weatherburne
"He didn't tell you anything or say anything? What did you do? What was your response when you saw that happening?"

John Pollard - Owner, Big John's Tour and Taxi Company
"My response, because we had agreed with BTB to remain at terminal 1 and not to cross that line. We remained here at terminal 1 throughout all of that this morning. We remained here. I don't like people to take advantage of me because I'm here to follow rules and regulations. If people want to play games, please let us know how to play games. I am here to make my ship flow and I know the other operators are here to let their business flow also."

Louigi Turton - Owner, Belize Fun Tours
"Today I lost maybe 14 people - $85 US per person right around $1200US for the morning. It's not just what the company loses. Three people didn't get to work today so it passes down and it passes down fast. Other than the guys that we send out we also get food. We pre-ordered food so all the lunch we preordered, all the gears that we rented, everything has to be paid still, but people still loose. There's a lot of income that's lost. Tomorrow we have about maybe 60 people that were set to go on tour. We don't know how this will affect the tours tomorrow but we are expecting. What I will do is total amount of lost that we have because it is going to impact our business one way or the other."

According to Pollard, he lost 300 tourists/customers this morning alone. He believes this was an intentional attempt to direct business to the other tour operators at terminal 2 who aren't doing so well. We tried to contact one of the directors at BTB and the Manager at FSTV for comment but they were unavailable. We understand that a meeting was held this afternoon on this same issue and we will have more on this story tomorrow.