The 31st Annual Florida Caribbean Cruise Association Cruise Conference & Tradeshow finished today in Puerto Rico. It's the major meeting of cruise industry movers and shakers, buyers and sellers. Belize always sends a delegation from the BTB- but this year was different. They bolstered that contingent with regular tour operators who usually sell their tours outside terminal one. They got pulled up for a front row seat at the biggest cruise industry event in the world. Nickolai Alvarado - who you may remember as the Chairman of Boston Village - is also the owner of a major cruise oriented tour company. He was there and told us today via zoom from Puerto Rico why it was so important for these operators:
Nickoli Alvarado, Tour Operator
"The Belize Tourism Board this year, with the guidance of the Minister, Anthony Mahler and the team actually pulled an all inclusive package for tour operators, specifically from outside of the village, noh? Terminal 1 who will never get the opportunity for something like this."
"I mean that these operators just had to go there with that tour package. And you'll meet with the Shore Ex(curation) Managers. Now the Shore Ex managers not any normal person can meet them. Because they don't come on the ship in Belize, they are stationed at their office in Miami, or California or wherever the head office is for their ship. But these Shore Ex managers were present at this conference, and the operators had the ability to meet them. One on one to sell themselves to the ship, sell their packages and their tours and their company to the ship. So if they had taken that opportunity to set up these one on one meetings with which was paid for, you know, which was part of the entire package that BTB provided, I mean, when they left from there to today is the last day everybody's going back home today or tomorrow."
"When they left from Puerto Rico, they could have left with a secured contract, you know, with the cruise lines."
"Show up, just show up there with their tour package, your business cards, your business plan. Have the mindset of going in there and just you;ve got 15 minutes, 20 minutes to sell yourself to the people them."
"This event that was amazing: networking, the opportunity for networking and meet with these people is a once in a lifetime, Jules, once a lifetime these operators get to do."
One added benefit of the event is that the tour operators get to learn first hand about industry developments. And, Alvarado says Belize is getting left behind:
Nickoli Alvarado, Tour Operator
"The cruise tourism industry is moving forward every year. It's moving forward and the next step for Belize is a cruise port. That's what we need."
"2029, 2030 Belize needs to have a cruise port. When Belize gets a cruise port, right when we get a cruise port in Belize, if you are a tour operator carrying 50 people for the day, expect that number to rise by at least 5 to 10 times the amount, 5 to 10 times the amount. Why I say that? Cozumel has a deepwater port right now, right?"
"Roatan has a deepwater port. Belize is in the middle. For the month of October. Cozumel is seeing 87 cruise line ships; Roatan is seeing 83. Belize is seeing 12."
"So ships that are going to Cozumel, Roatan include Virgin America, Disney Cruise, Icons of the Seas, World America - Icons of the Seas is RCL, World America is the new Celebrity, the mega ships. So they they're bypassing Belize right now. Right. Because of the, well the porting, the porting, we need, we need that deepwater port. When that, when that is done, I think everybody in the cruise industry will be very, very happy."
"They noh di wait for Belize, they are moving ahead. They are building ships, right? Up until 2033. Carnival. Carnival has six ships that they're building by 2033. Six more mega ships. So what does that mean for Belize? A lot more tourists coming to Belize, right? Lot more tourists. So the opportunity that the Belize Tourism Board provided though was great. Great eye opener, great networking. It was just great. It was just something that you had to seize the opportunity."
