Is there any chance that our Prime Minister could comment on this hateful article of the cruise ship people? Although I understand he himself used some anti-foreigner words about the head of BTIA, I cannot believe he would support the level of hatred and bitterness towards all of us who love this country and want so much to live here rather than any other place on earth. I call on the Prime Minister to distance himself from this hatefulness and reassure us we are welcome in Belize.

Does the Belize Cruise Industry Association really want all the foreigners who spent their whole adult life in Belize and whose children were born in Belize to leave the country?

I have heard of the head of BTIA. Didn?t she and her husband spend their whole lives building a jungle lodge that helped tourism begin in Cayo? Didn?t they receive the green award for their environmentally friendly and magnificent hotel from the international travel agents organization and many other awards around the world bringing attention to the beauty of Belize and increasing tourism throughout the country? Yet the cruise ship association spits such hatred and bitterness at them you would think they wanted them to just close down and leave the country!

And should all of us foreigners begin to pack our bags? Are we all hated as the cruise ship association says we are? I hope not.

And what about the 25% of Belizeans who work in tourism? Some of these people work for the hated foreigners. Others have worked for foreigners who developed the tourism industry in Belize and have gone out on their own with their own hotels, guiding businesses and related tour businesses. Very few, I?m sure less than 1%, have ever worked for a cruise ship or received help from a cruise ship in setting up their own business.

And what is this cruise ship business that the cruise ship association is willing to kick out all the foreigners (or scare them away) to protect? What does this great new industry do that rates its destruction of the existing tourism industry? Well, at least as far as Carnival is concerned, it is very, very rich. Carnival reported making one billion dollars (US) in the last three months. They do a huge business carrying around tens of thousands of people every week briefly visiting many different countries for quite cheap in floating holiday inns. Carnival is the low priced-high volume side of the cruise industry. They provide everything that the Belize tourism industry provides. They own the hotel rooms; they own the restaurants for breakfast and for dinner; they own shops; they own the on board casino. They do it all. The cruise ships make so much money because they share almost nothing with the businesses in the countries they visit.

And so this floating hotel, restaurant, shopping center with a casino and a snazzy nightclub parks itself in our waters. It flushes its toilet in our sea but what does it buy while it?s here?

Well, actually, very little. The foreigner-hating Belize Cruise Industry Association gets the bulk of the money by setting up some tours. A few nice Belize restaurants get to sell lunch. A few other resorts get to sell a few other Belize experiences.

But let?s face it. Carnival is well known as the most budget of cruise lines and their guests spend almost everything they spend with Carnival itself and very little in the country that their toilets flush into.

Many countries don?t want cruise ships because they are known to scare away real spending overnight tourists. Think of it. You are a tourist coming from Los Angeles. You are staying at a resort in Cayo or San Pedro for US$200 per night. You hire a guide to take you to a few sites for US$100. You arrive at Xunantunich and find 6 busloads of tourists who have arrived at the same time. It?s crowded, its noisy. There are no on-site guides left to show you around. The experience is not what you had dreamed when you chose to come to Belize. You look around you and say well, this is the last time I go wherever busloads of cruise ship people are. And what have those cruise ship people contributed to the local economy? Well, the Belize Cruise Industry Association gets most of it by putting them on buses and boats, driving them around and a few dollars goes for lunch. That?s it. They spend amazingly little on souvenirs. In fact they are so cheap in spending that shops in San Pedro are beginning to put out signs for cruise ship people to keep out as they fill the shop and high spending overnight tourists won?t come in.

And what about wear and tear from these thousands and thousands of boat people on our monuments and ruins? What about the Reef? It used to be 25?100 people a day at Hol Chan underwater park near the Reef. You don?t have to be a scientist to guess what effect dropping thousands of snorkelers can do to the Reef. Of course the Belize Cruise Industry Association that so hates foreigners and the people who helped build real tourism in Belize, get very well paid for these massive drops of people on the Reef. Didn?t they say in their anti-foreigner article that they protected the Reef from the foreigners? It appears they got that wrong.

If all the hotels in Cancun could stay full with guests and provide them with all their meals (except lunch) but send their paying guests during the day here to Belize for day trips using our reefs, our ruins, our roads, etc., but make sure they went back to Cancun by the end of the day to spend their money in Mexico ? would we accept that?

I suppose the people who had the contract to move the tourists from Cancun and back each day would like it very much.

So, Cruise Ship Industry Association, please stop your war against foreigners and be honest. You are just trying to line your own pockets with cash. And of course the real tourism industry ? the hotels, restaurants, guides and serious inland trips along with fishing guides, dive masters and all the small businesses by the sea, etc., all these established tourism interests are scared to death of an expanded cruise ship business. Why? Because the high end tourists and eco-tourists that love to visit and stay in Belize and even invest in Belize, do not want to be around the masses of cruise ship tourists that drop in for a few hours and flood the monuments, reefs, and highways of this country. The good high end high spending tourists simply won?t go to mass cruise ship destinations.

So what is the answer?

Well, if it were up to the Cruise Ship Industry Association, tourism in Belize would be cruise ship tourism and the members of this association would get very rich indeed.

As for the rest of tourism that employs 25% of the population, many would be out of a job, but at least the evil foreigners would be gone.

Sincerely,

Robert Smith (name changed to protect from retaliation)

Belize Retiree Association (actually if Alexandra could make up Belize Tourism Association, I thought I could make up this retirement association ? neither exists.)