Yesterday, Wednesday, the Fort George Tourism Zone opened for business with 4 cruise ships in port. Another three are said to have arrived today.
Ordinarily, that would have meant big business for the hundreds of vendors, taxi operators, tour guides, and other service providers within the Fort Street Tourism Village and outside in the area stretching from City Hall to Memorial Park and the sea. It would have prompted a frenzy of haggling and jousting as competing services sought out willing customers.
But stakeholders we spoke with say that the plan, unveiled to some fanfare on Saturday last at Old Belize to regularize the situation, has not been translated well on the ground, and the result is severe loss of income at the worst possible time – two weeks before Christmas.
Yesterday, members of the Tourist Village Taxi and Tour Guide Association complained to reporters that while some of their members inside the Village area had gotten some business, those operating from what is referred to as “Terminal Four” on North Front Street, previously home to the temporary market and next door to the Brown Sugar Market complex, were getting no business at all, because the dispatchers hired to direct tourists to them were largely being ignored, and worse, the gate was kept closed, barring them from directly soliciting the visitors.
Today, we went to see for ourselves. Around 3:00 this afternoon, nearing the end of an ordinary day by industry standards, activity had significantly dwindled on North Front Street and most service providers were just standing around, waiting.
According to Ruth Smith, president of the Hair Braiders’ Association, a group of 16 women established for as much as a decade in the area, the plan was “not working out at all; they put us in the Mirab parking lot, far away from the tourists. We can’t go up to them, but we are yet to see anyone approach us. Our job is about negotiation, convincing them to get their hair done. How are we to do that if they lock us away?”
Smith says that non-members of the Association and her group have been put in the same area, further hurting their business. Today, she said, she made just US$6; on a day like yesterday, for instance, she estimates net income of “close to $200.”
“We were already sharing out jobs before this implementation. If someone approached me and I already have a job, I give it to the next lady in line. My main concern at the end of the day is seeing to it that I and the ladies I work with go home with something,” Smith said, adding that the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) would have to be responsible for non-members.
A taxi operator who did not identify himself told us that they were only being allowed to pick up and drop off persons who come out to them in the downtown area and at Old Belize. Previously, he said, they would get runs to some of the major tourist sites, where they would hand off to the tour guides already present and be paid for their services. Now, the tour operators get first crack, he said.
Craft vendor Jennifer Garcia complained about the size of the stalls in the parking lot next to the St. Mary’s tennis court, where the vendors are congregated. “They have us locked up in there like pigs, like we are in jail!” she said.
These and similar stories will be ventilated at a press conference to be called by the Federation of Cruise Tourism Associations of Belize (FECTAB) at the Princess Hotel in Belize City tomorrow morning, Friday, at 10:00.