And switching gears Lamanai is one of NICH's main sites, but some tourists are opting out of those tours because access to the top of the High Temple is restricted.
Think about it like this why would the average tourist pay for a tour to a Maya Temple if they can't climb it?
That disincentive has translated to lost revenues for tour companies. AyinHa Adventures in particular whose company specializes in taking cruise tourists from Lemonal to Lamanai has had to watch as their visitation slowly decreased. And it's all due to structural issues at the site. The guardrail for the stairs leading up to the temple is missing and for safety reasons, tourists are not allowed to climb it, leaving them only with the smaller temples. On top of that, the dock that the tourists use to disembark from the boats is in need of urgent repair.
These tourists have taken to cruise websites to give negative reviews about the attraction, which dissuades other tourists from visiting. The proprietor of AyinHa Adventure, Larry Flowers, is now desperate, beseeching NICH to do something anything! about the guardrails before they lose any more revenue.
Courtney Menzies went north to visit the site today and has this story:
Courtney Menzies
"This is the tallest temple here at Lamanai, a towering 108 feet, and the centerpiece attraction here. But right now tourists are barred from climbing it because of missing guardrails, a key safety feature. One tour operator says this is costing him and his employees thousands of dollars in lost revenue because of negative reviews the site is getting on cruise sites."
Laura Budna - AyinHa Spokesperson
"It's affecting tremendously, we used to have great reviews and now it has been down drastically due to the dilapidated deck at Lamanai as well as the rail that the tourists climb the highest pyramid. And it has also been very, very slow for us lately. Before we were getting very, very good tours, from ten, twelve tours and now, yesterday was 2, we had 2 ships and we only got 2 tours, today we only have 1. I'm saying two tours yesterday, two tours with only 40+ people, today we only have 30 people, one tour, which is very, very slow for us."
AyinHa Adventures is now trying to hold on to any revenue they do make, since they say they're operating at a loss. And they're pleading with NICH to get those guardrails on since tourists don't want to visit a Mayan ruin they can't climb. And the more negative reviews Lamanai gets, the less tourists it sees.
Laura Budna
"All I could say is that NICH has to do something about the Lamanai ruin which is very, very important for the tourists and for us, for them to get their stuff. My management, AyinHa adventures has offered to assist with the renovating of the dock as well as the rails and nothing has been done, for some reason or the other, they have refused."
While most of Ayinha Adeventures' customers are cruise ship passengers, Lamanai sees all sorts of tourists including overnight guests. And even they were a little let down that they couldn't climb to the top.
Ed Kammann - Tourist
"It's a little bit disappointing but I appreciate that there are monuments and ruins around the world that are threatened by overuse, over visiting, and so while it might be nice to be able to walk up this, it's rather steep so we have to be careful about that. Without a railing, I really would want something- it's one thing to be able to climb the stairs and a whole other thing to climb down the stairs so you have to be careful about that, I've done not a lot of climbing, but I've climbed on buildings that were designed with staircases and even that would be hard, so to climb this I would be much more careful, make sure that it was safe to do."
Jared - Tourist
"It's pretty cool, there's lots of cool artifacts that we got to see, the howler monkeys have been cinematic I guess."
Courtney Menzies
"And what was it like when they told you, you couldn't climb this particular tower?"
Jared
"I was a little upset because I hear the view was very spectacular from the top and yeah, it's better for the history, you know."
Courtney Menzies
"If they fix that would you come back?"
Jared
"Yes, definitely."
We're told the guardrail has been missing for at least seven months since Ayinha reopened its doors back in June 2021.
We attempted to contact Merilyn Young, who we are told is the acting president of NICH, but up to news time, she had not responded.
