Yhony Rosado Says G.O.B. Over-regulates Small Tour Operators

Yhony Rosado

FECTAB member and tour operator Yhony Rosado says they deliberately waited until after elections to come public, since they didn’t want to be tarred with a political brush. Still, he says, they are forced to come out now because the small tour operators are losing their livelihoods due to government policies. One major problem, says Rosado, is the over-regulation of the small groups.

Yhony Rosado, Owner, Cave-tubing.com

“When you go to No’hoch Che’en, you see all types of signs and we have to take our guests through all those signs. When you come to my house, if I put a sign no cap allow, no shoes allow; when you come to my house, if I tell you yo can’t do this, yo can’t do that….it’s for your safety. You don’t invite a guest and put a lot of rules before entering your house. You invite your guests without rules…be my guest, you are my guest…welcome to my house. You’re gonna get the cleanest water, the best plate, the best dish of my house; you’re gonna get the best. When you are our guest, we are going to treat you with all we have—from the government, to the NICH, to B.T.B., to tour operators and the tour guides. But how can we do our job when our fathers, our governments, our institutions are regulating our guests too much. So we are here to present a case as Dark Night has no regulations. And when you go to Jaguar Paw which is the caves that Chukka is using right now, when you go back there, it is no regulations. What is hurting us is the actual bunch of regulations and signs that we have to go through so our guests sees us like we don’t know what we are doing, like we get our license through a different medium. This is the question we have before they booking us; are you guys tour operators licensed by your government? We have to live this or we have to endure these questions because of the system that we have in our country.”