Should G.O.B. strike a deal with NCL even though only pocket tourism is recommended for southern Belize?
And our question for tonight is: Should G.O.B. strike a deal with NCL even though only pocket tourism is recommended for southern Belize? Send your comments and responses using your SMART phones to 8686 or post your vote on our e-poll at channel5belize.com. You can also send an email with your comments to questions@channel5belize.com.
The fact that NCL is negotiating with this goverment, contracts that will be cancelled in the future, and the bad press they are getting in Belize and the rest of the world, indicates they are comfortable with criminals and don’t mind bad press.
Where are they located? Maybe they understand protests.
The fact that they must know about BTL and BEL, and still think that GOB is honorable in business dealings must mean NCL are idiots or criminals themselves!
Toledo is the poorest area of Belize, why would any sensible government turn away the possibility of providing jobs for those people? Overnight tourism is dominated by foreign interests in Placencia; nothing there is owned by bekizeans anymore. They are not growing their businesses fast enough or big enough to make the needed jobs. Give the common man a break. Of course GOB should bring in the investment.
Lets all hope that this project will come through successfully. This is the kind of development Belize needs
An expensive, paid for by GOB study was done resulting in no to large cruise ships. Yet GOB does not follow the recommendation. A census in the south results in no to large cruise ships. The GOB does not listen. The GOB in Belmopan is obviously being compensated by NCL to keep pushing for them. If this goes through they, who by the way do not live in the south, will most obviously pocket money that the south will have to pay for by the negative impact it will have on them. Overnight tourism which is a major part of the economy bringing in hard cash in the south will stop. The destructive impact cruise ships have on their destinations is documented all over the world. Short money for the GOB with long term destruction in the south.
@Maverick, Toledo may be the poorest district, but it also has the lowest crime.
More importantly, the vast majority of people in Toledo and Stann Creek don’t want this screwing with their lives. Just because it creates money does not mean it is good.
If they don’t want it, why is gob doing this? Why piss off the people who live there?
Obviously UDP is going to cash in.
some fig leaf will be put up saying it helps the country.
@Belizean, this is going to be another half-baked, incompetent criminal operation spun off by fools who will negotiate least dollar for the country. It will be like the rosewood or oil, laws don’t apply, criminals only make the money. Everybody else, here is 5 cents, get out of the way. What Belize needs is to get the next generation educated. Being stupid, being at the bottom, means the country does not have a chance. You can’t run the entire economy on tourism, ask Egypt. 95% drop for them because violence has driven away the business. I have told friends stop coming to Belize about a year after UDP took over; the crime is out of control, tourists are being arrested on shakedowns. Safer to go to Guatemala, which I never thought would happen. Fish rots from the head.
If you think that Placencia tourism is all in the hands of foreigners you are wrong. Lots of Belizeans making a good living on tourism there, and all over the peninsula and district. And those tourists eat a lot of local fish and produce too. Cruise ship tourists have their own guides, their own boats, and they bring their own lunch. All they leave behind is their trash and their mess. If you think this is a good way to make the south prosperous, just look how Belize City is doing so well off it.