7 News Belize

Hello, Harvest Caye!
posted (April 7, 2016)
In November of this year, the country's cruise profile is set to change drastically when Norwegian Cruise Line officially opens its Harvest Caye Cruise Port. It's the much talked about, multimillion dollar facility on Harvest Caye, just off the Placencia Peninsula.

Today, NCL invited the media and the Government to Placencia for a local launch of the project. No, we didn't get to visit Harvest Caye for ourselves; the executives have promised to do that a later date. But, we did get an update on the status of the project from NCL Senior Vice President Colin Murphy, who is in charge of Destination & Port Operations. Here's his presentation to the gathering the Belize Ocean Club Resort which happened this afternoon:

Colin Murphy, V.P., Destination Development, NCL
"So this is the beach and the beach look fabulous I gotta say. More trees and more shade, but the beach came out extremely well and we are very happy with the outcome. We try to give the building a little bit of character and styles, so they are not boring and functional buildings. The bathrooms will have similar look. These are the early days of those beach fillers, we had landscape to go in to make them look very nice. So this is the economic impact, despite what you read in the social media. What the approved, head count is 240 full time - 50 week a year positions and maybe small number of people we will have seasonal. We made the decision that in the hospitality industry it's not unusual to hire people in the high season and let them go in the summer - they have to raise a family that way. So we decided that 95% of our positions may peak up a little bit and down, but will be fulltime, year round positions. So we have 240 approved positions and 98% of those are Belizeans. There is a food and beverage provider and they are expected to hire 150 people. My guess for the retailers are 50, but it's probably higher than that. My guess for tour operators are 70, but it's probably higher than that. We feel that we kept our promise. We promise to be a good corporate citizen, we promise to support business in Belize as much as we could and we think it's going to be a transformative event."

Our team is just leaving Placencia and we'll have a little more from that press conference in tomorrow's newscast, when we'll speak to the owner of Belize City Riverside Tavern, who's hit it big in his contract with NCL provide all the food and beverages at Harvest Caye.

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7 News Belize