FECTAB Declares Cruise Crisis

Tom Greenwood

But Greenwood says that tour operators are also hurting from other decisions made by Government agencies. The FECTAB President made a call to the stakeholders involved to save what he says is an already collapsed cruise industry.

Tom Greenwood, President, FECTAB

“What happens to us outside? Luckily we have a way of getting our people through yet but that number has drastically reduce it has gone right down to the point where we start to call Nohoch Che’en ghost town because nothing happens there; Altun Ha ghost town because nothing happens in the low season. Now the high season is coming up. I have my doubts because there are entities inside the cruise village FSTV and of course now working on the cruise ships that are going to try every single trick in the book to garner as much as they can which will leave us on the outside in the doldrums that is what I fear.  So, we need attention to the cruise industry. We need attention to the many native Belizeans who have taken their last dollar and gotten involved. We need NICH to have a second look at that banning children under the size of forty. We need NICH to look at that; lift that and suddenly you will see numbers back at the Nohoch Che’en. These are the simple things that we need to survive; the cruise industry made us survive but it has collapsed as far as we are concerned. We need to revive it and the Government can certainly help a great deal in doing this. What happens for the future? Well, we all will look forward to December, January, February, March, April – then after that what? Drop dah wata again? So, it is critical that the private and public sector work together to see how to best control this.”