In our first segment you heard from the members of FECTAB - who were very emotive when they described the chance - taking that's happening at the hands of Chukka Tours - a Jamaican company.
Chukka is a partner in Bakabush tours - and today the Chief Operating Officer Guy Martin made no apologies for his company's market dominance. He says they do it be keeping standards and working hard, and encouraged others in the industry to do the same:....
Jules Vasquez
"What they said is that your company is smothering competition in Belize and it is using foreign labor, it is using Jamaicans who they can pay more cheaply than they can with Belizeans. How would you answer that fundamental criticism?"
Guy Martin, COO - Chukka Tours
"Well I will answer it this way to you. We have 139 fulltime employees, we have 92 contracted tour guides, out of that total which is over 200 closing on 250, 3 individuals are of Jamaican heritage; one is an accountant; one is in the training area; and the other is an accounting admin person. We have no Jamaicans who offer tours. We believe that we are in the business of offering a Belize experience for the guests that come here and to do that we have to have Belizean guides. we are not going to do that with guides from Jamaica, we have no intention, never had and never will be importing any guides from Jamaica to work in Belize. Some of the allegations are that we are taking over the whole industry, taking over transportation. We have never owned a bus in this country that we take our guests from the pier. We contract out our bus services."
Jules Vasquez
"We have some small tour operators complaining that they are no longer successful and their businesses will soon no longer be viable because of the massive corporate operational imprint of this joint venture between your company and the Wilson's."
Guy Martin, COO - Chukka Tours
"You know I wish I could say that we are massive - we are a small company, a very small company in the scheme of things, we are just trying very hard to compete against everybody else in the world that offers tours so that we can garner the cruise ship industry to grow in the Caribbean. Just to give you an example, every year, you don't get any contract with the cruise lines that go beyond a year, there are no special concessions, one of the key criteria that they look for in a tour operator are their standard operating procedures, documented and tested along with that goes insurance, the safety precautions that are taken and the training that you give your staff. When you put that together in a package and you present it you are going to float to the top in terms of being looked at as a tour operator that they want to work with. We have done that from the very beginning. I think some tour companies have lost some business and, is it because of us? I don't think it's because of us, I think it's because of what they were doing, if you are going to run a our operation and expect to get contract from the cruise line, you have got to run it at a certain level, you got to carry your insurances, you got to be legally set up and all the various things that you need to run a good business. And in some of these cases some of the operators were not and when it came to the surface that they were not - through by whatever means - some of them were through accidents that occurred and it was found out that the insurance wasn't valid; some of them were by other means, but whenever it came to the surface…as a large corporation in the US having to mitigate their risks, cruise lines are going to say, 'Look we are not doing business with you,' and if fact they may even say 'I am not ever going to do business with you.'"
Jules Vasquez
"These people are saying that the government should make an accommodation for them to protect them against this foreign competitor which can outmatch them, out-fund them and also out-compete them. And that's why the overwhelming sentiment in the meeting this morning was that Chukka must go."
Guy Martin, COO - Chukka Tours
"Well let me say this to you that I am not a proponent for un-leveling the playing field, we've been through that too many times in our Caribbean community and we can look around and see the results where manufacturing and other industries has gone because we try to unlevel the playing field, it just doesn't work in a global marketplace."
Jules Vasquez
"The resolution made at the meeting was that Chukka Cove has to go."
Guy Martin, COO - Chukka Tours
"We are not Chukka Cove, we are Chukka Caribbean Adventures and right here in Belize we are not Chukka Caribbean Adventures, we are Bakabush."
Jules Vasquez
"That company has to go they say."
Guy Martin, COO - Chukka Tours
"And who is going to replace it? I am going to throw that out to you. If you don't have any tour operators right now who are in a position to offer the cruise lines - which ever cruise lines there may be - the standard operating procedures, the quality, the safety, the insurance and the legal framework within which they operate, where do you think they are going to go? There are 2 ports down in Roatan, I will tell you that I think that's where they will go. Cruise industry goes where ever there is tours to go, a cruise lines will not bring a ship to a port where there is nothing for their guests to do and if they can't find operators that are going to be able to work with them in raising the level of quality of their tours to what is necessary to be sold on their ships, they are going to go to another port. I am not suggesting if we leave that's is going to happen."
Jules Vasquez
"You seem to be suggesting that. But you didn't invent cruise tourism in Belize, it was here before."
Guy Martin, COO - Chukka Tours
"Precisely it was here before and it will always be there. The point is at what level and what level do you want to take it?"
Jules Vasquez
"It is clear that there will be a good deal of headaches and harassment ahead for your company's involvement in this joint venture. Will you all be sticking around?"
Guy Martin, COO - Chukka Tours
"Where are we going to go?"
Jules Vasquez
"Back to Jamaica or Turks and Caicos."
Guy Martin, COO - Chukka Tours
"We are partners with the Wilson's in this company; we are just going to walk away from what we have invested, from the time and energy we have put in? No, we are here to stay. This is a Belizean company. Yes there is an investor from the outside but it is a Belizean company, it employs Belizeans employees. It filters down through the community; every dollar this company earns from cruise tourism comes in through your central bank into our bank account in US dollars to pay our bills here."
For the record, Yonni Rosado of Cave-tubing dot com who you saw in our first story said they do have liability insurance.
Chukka has operations in Turks and Caicos, and Jamaica.
