Yhony Rosado is back in the news, sounding the alarm once again on the state of cruise tourism. He held a press conference today to let the country know that cruise tourism is dying fast and if the government doesn't intervene urgently, then dozens of tour operators and tour guides will be out of work.
And he was backed up today by Raul Pelayo, the owner of Creme de la Creme and the Creme Park Project, which is right outside the Tourist Village. He explained that he's been watching the dwindling numbers of cruise tourists and it's been affecting his business as well.
Here's a snippet of the conference.
Yhony Rosado, Tour Operator
"The cruise tourism or the ministry or BTB or the PUP or any P should come clear and say if you're going to get in the cruise tourism, prepare another job on the side because cruise tourism is only a one, two days job per week. Even when the high season comes, it's very difficult now. So that's number one point, the cruise tourism is not a full time job."
"I come to this press conference today to let you know that with the cruise ship, with BTB, with the government, with the minister, it's a disaster because the ships are getting bigger, the tenders got bigger, and we're getting less passengers. You tell me how to fix that."
"I see myself in the cruise tourism going below the threshold so I believe the government, if they don't fix this cruise tourism, very soon, they won't be able to pay the teachers, I'm not a prophet or sorcerer, I just could see things by numbers. If we can't pay our bills, water bill, light bill, if we cannot pay our bills, you tell me who will, and we work hard."
"I'll tell you this, we need help and we need it urgently or else we will have more crime, more violence in our industry."
Raul Pelayo, The Creme Park Project
"For the last year I made it my personal interest to find out also why the community park is not doing as it used to do for cruise tourism. So is it customer care, is it quality of the product, is it the type of employees, or is it just the way the economy or the industry, so I personally came to Belize City and for those that know me and know I am there 100% for the last 9 months taking care of that community park doing mey deed but at the same time I'm seeing where the cruise tourism tour operators are struggling. I see when they argue, I see how they fight sometimes, and I see a lot of people lean to this man on my right, lean in and say, Yhony, you need to do a press conference."
