Luke stands firm to go it alone on cruise port
As a source of Thursday news, Godfrey Smith’s column in the Belize Times is getting to be as reliable as a Rolex. In today’s issue, the Minister of Tourism for the first time publicly reveals what appears to be a crisis in the cruise industry. His take is that Luke Espat and Carnival have reached an impasse on the Port Loyola cruise terminal and while Luke is willing to go it alone, Carnival refuses to formally commit to using it, thus making it nearly impossible to obtain financing.
At the same time, Mike Feinstein and his partners at Royal Caribbean have a project to turn Stake Bank into a cruise port, but the hang up is that under Luke’s contract to buy the Belize City Port, no competing facility can be built without his permission.
The answer? According to Smith, Belize must build a cruise port to stay competitive and one way forward would be for the two developers to negotiate a joint venture. He says a better solution, however, would be government to engage Carnival directly to see what can be done to salvage the situation. Today we spoke to Luke Espat who tells us that the only thing he needs from government is for Belmopan to live up to its commitments.
Luke Espat, Chairman, Belize Ports Ltd.
