They broke champagne for the $100 million Belize Cruise Terminal in April of 2004, but 5 years on, the sweet taste of that day has soured and now 7News has learned that Carnival Corporation has terminated its agreement with developer Luke Espat. 7News has obtained a copy of a letter sent from Carnival’s Senior Vice President Giora Israel to the CEO in the Ministry of Tourism Michael Singh informing him that, “at our meeting with Luke Espat on May 19th. we agreed to seek a termination of the joint venture transaction for the development of the cruise port facility in Belize.”
Israel goes on to say that a termination of the joint venture presents the best way forward fro all parties. He adds that Carnival is committed to improving the destination and, in the future, will continue to bring the most passengers to Belize. And whole Israel’s general statement seems encouraging the Prime Minister yesterday told us that the development in no way clears up the picture of the future for cruise tourism in Belize.
And while the dissolution of the contract does seem to clear government of its many concessionary obligations under the contract, Barrow said the government has no position on the development because based on what Israel had told him months ago about difficulties with Carnival had been having with Espat, he had been of the view that the dissolution of the contract was more or less an inevitability. Barrow told us it doesn’t set things either backward or forward in his view – but lamented that presently there is no clear view of a long term plan for cruise tourism.
As for Luke Espat who’s left in the breach and who has put – he says – $20 million of his money into the ground, he declined comment. And while we suspect Espat is not going to take it lying down, what does the news mean to regular folks? Well first, the promise of the project to transform Port Loyola and provide hundreds of jobs in the city appears now to be another lost hope – or at least a dream significantly deferred. Apart from vast volumes of fill, there is only scarce development on the site and we are now two years past even the extended deadline for completion which was the summer of 2007.
But experts seem to agree that can’t be the end of it – and Belize City will eventually have a terminal where cruise shops can dock – and the fact is the port location is the most viable in the city - particularly after Espat bought out the other competitor’s staging ground, Mike Feinstein’s Stake Bank Caye. So something will happen sometime, but presently the cruise tourism crystal ball seems very unclear.
