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Valdemar Andrade - Director, Destination Planning & Cruise, BTB
"The southern cruise port at Harvest Caye basically at this time from my knowledge is that it will be delayed. I don't know the exact timing of it. What I do know is that they have informed me that they will have a press release soon to know the exact timing of what that will be. It was scheduled to officially be opened on February 2016. But it will be delayed."

Reporter
"Did they give you reasons as to why the delay?"

Valdemar Andrade - Director, Destination Planning & Cruise, BTB
"Not as yet. I don't have any reasons as to why the delay. Basically as soon as we know that, we will inform you. The tour that we had was to look at where it was in terms of timing, in terms of what's on there, especially and from what we see they are following the guidelines to what we know. In terms of the environmental guidelines, you would have to ask the department of the environment to speak with respect to those. But from our perspective it is coming along well and we are now expecting what that date will be so that when the southern cruise port will be open."

"From the preliminary conversations that we have had, we are expecting that there will be some activities on Harvest Caye itself. The mainland tours will be taken to the hub at Malacate and from the hub then they will have different tours from there. We also expect that guests will come off in Placencia where they will be an independent tour operations - independent activities for them to do as a nearby destination and so we are working with the Placencia Village Council to look at how we can ensure safety and security that their bathroom facilities, there are destinations for them to go to and the proper signage, safety and security matters."

Andrade hopes that it will be completed by November - which is the start of the tourism season.

So this project is expected to significantly boost cruise tourism in Southern Belize but how about the local and independent tour operators? Will they also be benefitting from this large scale project? Here is what Andrade had to say:

Reporter
"Sir, when you speak about operations or huge projects such as these, opportunities or job opportunities for the locals that's always a question or a concern. How many job opportunities if you can say at this point will be available for the independent tour operators or local operators?"

Valdemar Andrade
"In terms of jobs on a whole, my understanding that from the job fair that was recently held, there are over a thousand people who interviewed for jobs. From that I've been reliably informed that just over 500 people will be employed. Out of those, depending on what their skill level was and that kind of stuff, I know that some of them have been made job offers already. But that will coincide with the timing of when the port will actually open. In terms of tour operation, I wouldn't be able to give you an exact number, but what we are looking around I would say anywhere between 50-100 guides will be needed initially and so the guide community on a whole in the south have been preparing themselves and we are also looking at how we can help them to prepare at the nest level possible."

Andrade told us they will be planning a media tour next year. We've been asking for one for months, and were told it might have happened today, but in the immortal words of Joan Duran: "Not Ready Yet!"