In last night's headline, we showed you how Norwegian Cruise Line's Harvest Caye island getaway welcomed its first cruise visitors. It's a multi-million dollar investment in Southern Belize, and it comes with the only berthing facility for cruise ships in the country.
As we told you, we were refused an invitation to cover the opening ceremony, and the Government Press Office was the only local media entity there.
So, while we were only able to show you how the island looked from the distance on the sea, with the Press Office video from the island, we get to see all the pageantry that Norwegian refused to let us capture for Belizean viewing audiences.
And if Colin Murphy, NCL's Senior Vice President of Destinations and Strategic Planning, looked to be fighting back tears at during his speech - it's not because he was missing us!:
Colin Murphy, Sr. VP. Destinations and Strategic Dev., NCL
"We put a team of 400 people, give or take, between us and Food & Beverage and we have one of our corporate trainers do a lot of training. I'm going to say 95% of the folks that you see working here have zero hospitality experience. We were so impressed by the quality of the people, by the attitude, by the big smiles and their willingness to learn so I'm very grateful. Finally, I've got to thank the government of Belize from the Prime Minister on downwards. To Minister Heredia my friend, and to every other minister in the government. Karen Bevans of BTB and her team, thank you very much for giving us this opportunity. We've all been doing this for what reason? So that you can come here for 7 hours and have a wonderful time right? That's all you've got to do."
Hon. Manuel Heredia Jr., Minister of Tourism
"On behalf of the government and people of Belize, I would like to welcome you all to this important occasion. The arrival of Norwegian Dawn to Harvest Caye today is a milestone in the cruise tourism industry, but for this to happen, it needed a lot of people with open minds, it needed the support of a lot of people in particularly one person that comes to mind to me who was up and down, back and forth never giving up is Mr. Colin Murphy from Norwegian Cruise Lines. I believe we owe him a big round of applause. Many times I thought that he would leave because of little hurdles that were around but he never gave up."
The man who's going to provide all the food and beverage for the islands 4 restaurants and 9 bars is Dustin Bowen. He's the step-son of the late bottling magnate Sir Barry Bowen.
Dustin owns the popular Belize City restaurant and bar, the Riverside Tavern, and his company, Provisions Belize, will cater to all of Harvest Caye's guests. He gave the Government Press Office an interview and spoke about how he and his team have prepared themselves for the opportunity which Harvest Caye's tourist traffic will bring:
Dustin Bowen, CEO, Provisions Belize Ltd.
"We have the entire contract for all the food and beverage units on Harvest Caye. We've been involved since the inception for about 4 years. We've been very fortunate that Mr. Murphy has included us from then. It gave us an opportunity to really be a part of the development process of all the F&B venues here. So even from an operational standpoint, that helps us out a lot. Knowing what we need as operators and not just developers. We have Landshark Bar & Grill which is behind us, we have the Horseside Jack which stand in the villas, LaughingBird bar & grill which you saw today that was very busy on the beach in front of all of those lounge chairs, then Manatee Bar & Grill which is the village bar. We also manage the Kiosks in the village, Ice Cream, Daiquiri, Rum Coco, that is soon to be open as well. Not all Belizeans have the opportunity to go abroad, study and get the exposure. My commitment as a Belizean has, from the very beginning, I have a passion for people, I have a passion for food and culinary, and after my studies my intention was to come back to the country and spread that knowledge and wealth to give my people the opportunity to do the same. The intention is always to have them grow with me and eventually if they'd like to start their own business and become something else not just work under the provisions Belize Company, that's really the intention for them to own their homes, their own vehicles, whatever they want in life I really try to guide them that way. We employ over 150 people today now with Admin and all the service people on the island today. To finally have this come to fruition after being involved for 4 years, I had goosebumps walking up seeing the ship, being really close up and then watching all the people kind of spread out and enjoy the venues. We've had nothing but encouraging compliments and comments coming from all the cruisers. They say they've seen nothing like it before. The Zip lines, the activities, the food and beverage, everybody's very happy. Of course we're learning a couple of things they're going to request and like for their amenities, but it's all building data and knowing how to accomplish that within the next ship visit. This will definitely give Belize the justice it deserves because of the layout, the authenticity, when somebody visits Harvest Caye now you can truly say 'I've been to somewhere in Belize that represents Belize'."
With the opening of Harvest Caye, Cruise Tourism will now - for better or worse - become a key tourism feature of Southern Belize, which, prior to its arrival, depended exclusively on overnight tourism.
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