Two days ago, the BTB's Director of Destination Planning and Cruise, Valdemar Andrade told us he didn't know anything about the 2 million dollar insurance requirement that the FSTV was imposing on independent tour operators.
But 7News has obtained an email which shows that early that morning, before he gave us the denial, Andrade sent out an email to the independent operators talking very specifically about that same two million dollar insurance requirement. He tells the operators, quote, "we are not in support of the requirement for the 2 million dollar insurance being required of the operators."
The only good news coming out of that is that it puts Andrade on the record as saying BTB opposes the insurance requirements. And so do the operators. It's come to a head today because all 6 of them were required to sign their new leases. Those new leases will allow them to remain inside the village for another year - but the lease now also comes with the requirement to have the 2 million dollar insurance per passenger.
And that's why we understand that the independent operators are refusing to sign the new lease - and so we'll see if the foreign-owned FSTV kicks them out - which some say has been the end game all along. The lease expires on December 31st. We'll be monitoring it.
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