Yesterday we gave you an update on the heavy rain being caused this month by the La Niña effect. But it has not affected overnight tourist arrivals which in December has surpassed last year's record arrivals for 58,000 visitors. That's good news for "heads in beds", but the rain has made sure that there aren't many feet on trails.
The rains and subsequent flooding have forced extended closures of top dollar tourism sites such as Xunantunich, Nohoch Che'en & Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) Caves - among others. The ATM caves in particular were closed for a total of 10 days in December - which has put a serious dent in earnings for tour guides.
ATM cave in particular is a high value attraction and the extended closures have put a serious hurting on the 70 guides licensed to operate in there. We spoke to one of them today in San Ignacio:
Shaman Burns, Tour Guide - Yute Expeditions
"Well, in regards to the weather, yes, it was really bad. We've had a lot of cancellations with bookings, and the big issue with that is that many guests, they wanted to reschedule, but with the fact that where I work at the ATM Cave, we have limited guides, so there was no possibility of rebooking. It was all a backlog, and it was constant messages from people who were unsatisfied with what we couldn't provide for them."
Jaleeza Roberts -
"And how does that result in losses, you know, financial losses?"
Shaman Burns, Tour Guide - Yute Expeditions
"Well, financially, it affects everyone. As you may know, tourism has a trickle-down effect. It builds up a community really easily. And there's a lot of impacts there in the fact that a lot of the sites were closed, not only ATM Cave, but Xunantunich, Barton Creek, and Notch Chen with the cave tubing. A lot of closings there, closures."
"Well, my suggestion would be to call out on the authorities, NICH, the Institute of Archaeology. I call on them to look into alternatives as these people who come to Belize, they're looking for adventure, they're looking to have a nice time here, to experience our culture, to experience everything that they could possibly get from our country. We're providing them a service and it's sad that we weren't able to provide them with the service during the holidays."
Jaleeza Roberts -
"And so when you're talking about how many guides can work at ATM, what are the numbers that we're looking at specifically?"
Shaman Burns, Tour Guide - Yute Expeditions
"We're looking at about 70 guides. That's an average number, I'd say, a rough number. And each guide could lead six guests. So I could also tell you that the cave has a capacity, a carrying capacity of 250 people per day. And even though we have about 70 guides, not all guides are able to work per day. So six guests per guide, that's 420 people. And seeing that the current capacity is 250, not everyone could work."
Jaleeza Roberts -
"Do you guys have any guides in particular that were really depending on this weekend to finally make some money and, well, it didn't work out?"
Shaman Burns, Tour Guide - Yute Expeditions
"Well, the season, the tourism season, it didn't start until late this year. So there's been so many guides who have been waiting for the opportunity to make a little bit of money. I'm not sure what's causing all of this, but I mean, we've had a late start with our season."
As of this morning the cave was still closed.
