And more immediate than sargassum - the soon to be resolved US government shutdown - which has lasted just about 6 weeks has had an effect on Belize. Some hotels have reported to their association that the shutdown and the uncertainty it has created over flight cancellations has begun to impact their bookings, prompting guests to cancel their stay rather than be stranded in airports.
In a zoom meeting with the president of the Belize Hotel Association, he explained that the flights being cancelled are not the ones flying out of the US, but it's the connecting flights from one state to another that has been the root cause of hotel cancellations.
Reynaldo Malik, President, Belize Hotel Association
"Yes so we have seen a bit of an uptake in cancellations right now and no you would not be seeing a change in the traffic to Belize itself because the ten percent mandatory reduction flights was set out in a way where it is mostly affecting regional flights within the US and not the international flights. So what that means though Is while the scheduled flights from our connection points like Houston, Dallas, Miami etc are unaffected it doesn't mean that those traveling from other areas that need to connect or have flights scheduled to connect through those departure points that those are affected so they can get to that second leg of their flight or in some cases the third leg of their flights. So let's say you're coming from somewhere in Wyoming and you need to connect through Houston or Dallas. That flight coming to Houston or Dallas is the one that is cancelled right now and so you can't get to the next departure point so we are seeing an uptake in cancellations. What I know we are doing at the Muyono group as well as what I am recommending through my other BHA Members is to adapt a similar stance to what we had during covid where we encouraged travelers to not do a cancellation but to just simply rebook. And for us to do that it is just a matter of being flexible with our cancellation policies because as you would imagine if you are within the last 15 days leading up to your stay, most cancellation policies would dictate that you are out of look and you forfeit the entire amount that you have paid so what we do at Muy'Ono as well as what I am suggesting to BHA members, is that we become flexible with our cancellation policies instead of enforcing an outright cancellation and forfeiture of monies paid be flexible with the guest and give them. In the case of covid we gave people up to 2 years to rebook. I don't think this instance warrants a 2 year window but I would certainly recommend giving them a 12 month window to rebook their stay with us."
