Florida Caribbean Cruise Association meets, but FECTAB not invited to party

Tom Greenwood

The Federation of Cruise Tourism Associations of Belize (FECTAB) is once again up in arms over what it claims is unremitting preferential treatment being afforded to Chukka Tours.  The Florida Caribbean Cruise Association and the Belize Tourism Board are currently hosting a five-day cruise conference organized by the Platinum Association Membership Advisory Council (PAMAC) in San Pedro.  Aside from B.T.B., Fort Street Tourism Village and Chukka Tours are the only other locally managed companies that are platinum members of the cruise association.  The conference, we are told, is exclusively attended by the upper echelon of the group to discuss trends, develop ideas, as well as to promote existing cruise destinations.  Despite not being a member of the organization, FECTAB is embittered that Chukka has been approved to head all terrestrial tours during the conference.  This morning, its executives held a press conference to voice their dismay.

Tom Greenwood, President, FECTAB

“Last Monday, when I was called by an operator who was totally cheesed off and said that the tours were all granted, the land-based tours for the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association Platinum Conference were all granted, twelve of them, to Chukka and I said, “Well, what did you and the others get?” [His response was,] “One or two things happening in San Pedro.”  Cruise shipping doesn’t happen in San Pedro, cruise shipping happens in Belize City, Belize and Belize District and the Cayo District and part of the Orange Walk District but based in Belize City.  So when you end up with twelve tours that were allocated for the conference being done by one operator, if a single Belizean operator had done all the twelve tours we would’ve still railed up okay, we need to understand that.  This thing does not belong to one person, it belongs to a whole load of people.”

Isani Cayetano

“Mr. Greenwood, I can recall a conversation that I had with the Director of Tourism with regards to this very same familiarization [tour] with the FCCA and she was mentioning to me that this was exclusive to members of that particular association who have platinum membership and it requires a certain amount of money, I believe it was forty thousand [dollars] or something to that effect…”

Tom Greenwood

“Let me tell you.  Membership as a platinum member is twenty-five thousand US [dollars] okay.  We know.  That means what you were told is that we cannot attend the meeting.  I asked in a letter earlier on to attend on an observer status, as president of the federation, and I would have brought a couple members of the executive, observer.  I have been to platinum conferences.  I was working in a previous situation where the people I was working for were platinum members so I attended and there were observer status people.  They came from shipping and various other places and it didn’t pay for them to be full members, twenty-five thousand US [dollars] because they were attending a once-a-year thing just to put their input and to recommend and walk out.  I was told no, it can’t happen.”