Belize News Post learned today that Placencia’s tour operators (The Placencia Tour Operators Association ) has voted and argued against allowing cruise ships into Placencia. The tour operators have produced a list of reasons for not allowing the cruise ships which often carry 3000 plus passengers.
Among the reasons:
Noting that its members voted this week to oppose cruise tourism, the association said cruise ship tourists would have a detrimental effect on its traditional overnight tourist business, which has “known economic benefits … outweighing possible economic benefits from cruise tourism.”
The association also argued mass tourism from cruise ships would result in adverse effects on the area’s fragile marine and inland environments such as coral reefs and fish and bird habitats.
The associated also cited the inability of Belize to enforce laws regulating cruise tourism; the inability of local tour operators to obtain affordable loans necessary to comply with cruise ship requirements such as size and quality of boats and vehicles and liability insurance; the lack of meaningful local control; the fact that local sites already are at or over carrying capacity without the ability to accommodate mass tourism numbers; and significantly fewer employment opportunities for Belizeans in cruise ship tourism than traditional overnight tourism.
The association also noted a lack of necessary infrastructure in southern Belize for mass cruise ship tourism, such as sewage treatment facilities; public restrooms; garbage collection and disposal; roads; and even water systems to provide drinking water in some locations.
“The cost of providing this infrastructure will run into the millions of dollars — money our governments don’t have – either nationally or locally,” the association said.
This is not the end of the story however. The report also states that investors related to Royal Caribbean cruise ship operators have recently acquired land in Plancencia for the construction of a cruise ship/ tourism village. OMG, not another one. Belize is too small to have two badly planned, poorly managed tourist traps.
Read the full report from USA Today: Belize tourist area to cruise ships: Stay away
Mass cruise ship tourism will destroy the hard-won overnight tourism that the Placencia area has so carefully built over the last 20 years. And, an extensive study of the cruise ship industry in Belize sponsored by BTB proves that overnight tourism brings MUCH more economic benefits, employment and taxes to Belize with much less environmental damage to the country than mass cruise tourism.
Belize also has NO ability to enforce its laws, including laws related to cruise ship tourism, such as the number of tourists per guide, laws against dumping sewage, bilge water and garbage into the Sea, etc. We already can't enforce these laws in Belize City – what makes anyone think we can enforce them in southern Belize – where enforcement will be even harder than it is in Belize City (if the laws were even enforced there, which they're not).
Only a few will benefit – the large tour operators like Bakabush and operations like Diamond International. Local tour operators simply don't have the financial resources or access to cheap money that foreign companies do, so they can't compete.
Tourist sites in the south are small – such as Laughing Bird, Nim Li Punit, Lubaantun, etc. Some are already at or over capacity now. How will we accomodate 1000s of tourists a day under these circumstances without irrevocably damaging our natural heritage?
Some people in the south say cruise ship tourism is ok because we can control it. Hah!! When have we in the south ever been given the opportunity to control ANYTHING? Placencia Village passed its by-laws for regulation of our Village in 2002. Eight years later, those by-laws remain in limbo because national government refuses to complete the process of enacting them into law. They say they will, but they never do, despite years and years of heavy lobbying and repeated pushes by our Village Counil to get the by-laws enacted. We tell national government we don't want certain kinds of developments, but what do they do? They go ahead and approve them anyway. Bah. We can't control cruise tourism, especially when one single cruise ship company, Carnival, had revenues last year of over 40 TIMES that of the entire country of Belize. What kind of negotating power do we have under those circumstances?
Bringing mass cruise tourism to Placencia will destroy the Placencia that people in Belize and much of the rest of the world have come to know and love. Not to mention its effect on local Belizean owned businesses such as restaurants, hotels, gift shops and tour operators.
PLACENCIA IS NOT CRUISE TOURISM!!!!!!!!! No cruise ships in Placencia!
Lindsay, I admire your passion and your belief in the need to keep mass cruise ship tourism out of Belize. I am in the small ship cruise industry down in New Zealand and we have to abide by some very stringent regulations down here.
Mass cruise ship tourism is banned in New Zealand – end of story.
That is why we're in the luxury small ship cruise business here – and it is also why we leave New Zealand waters for half a year and sail up to Vanuatu where even fewer luxury boats operate from (but the regulations and controls are just as enforceable).
In our experience, the two worst dangers are:
1) Dumping of sewage and bilge water at sea
2) Environmental damage / erosion etc. from the wakes of fast-moving cruise ships.
Bruce
Luxury Vanuatu Cruises
NO .. NO .. NO ..
Ask them;
what they do with the garbage from the ships?
what they do with the fecal matter from all those passengers ?
What about all that waste from maintaining that ship ?
Over time it all will destroy Belize . (PERIOD)
there’s no question. Who do you know lives on or near a cruise ship dock?
STOP NOW !!! TAKE THE LEAD WHILE BELIZE HAS A CHANCE. PRESERVE BELIZE.
SHORT MONEY IS NO GOOD MONEY … PEOPLE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO VISIT, TAKE A FEW PICTURES, BUY SEVERAL ITEMS -AND- LEAVE. (PERIOD)
Royal Caribbean cruise ship operators SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN ALLOWED TO PURCHASE THIS LAND WITHOUT FIRST EXPLAINING HOW THEY WERE INTENDING TO USE THE LAND.
NOW A MESS HAS BEEN MADE JUST FOR QUICK MONEY …..
STOP! STOP! STOP! BEFORE IT IT ALL DESTROYED
m.a.