Prime Minister Briceno Meets Multiple Cruise Lines in Miami

Tonight, in our continuous report of the Prime Minister’s recent meetings overseas, we bring you the story of the meeting with cruise lines in Miami.  While some media outlets had reported that Prime Minister John Briceno was meeting exclusively with Royal Caribbean to further the Portico Agreement.  Love News has learnt that the Belize delegation, led by the Prime Minister, had actually met with several representatives from multiple cruise lines.  

Hon. John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “All of the cruise lines in Miami and of course we met with Royal Caribbean and Carnival and all the cruise- Norwegian and our message to them was that we want to work with them and you know we want to be able to see how we can bring the cruise passengers to Belize and to have a good experience and also about the importance of building the port. And so we believe that we had very good discussions with them. A very good discussion with Royal Caribbean who has expressed some interest in building or partnering with Buscalis and Portico and all the other actors that are prepared to invest in this port. In the meeting with all of them we said listen there’s a lot that can happen and if you all can get involved in the building of the port we have no objection. We want to ensure that we can have a port that can address the needs of the industry but a port that is built meeting the environmental standards that the country and the people of Belize expect.”

As it relates to Belize’s current position on the cruise ports, Prime Minister Briceno explained that it is now a matter of the recently drafted cruise policy to be implemented.

Hon. John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “It’s just a matter of implementation and one of the things that Minister Mahler has pointed out is that – and Minister Fonseca who is in charge of also to culture through NICH some of the reserves that whilst we want to promote the cruise industry there als has to be some kind of controls of the amount of people that are being allowed in all of these different sites. For Belize the overnight tourists bring a lot more revenues to Belize than the cruise so obviously they also have to continue to be a priority and they come to Belize and enjoy Belize because when they go to Lamanai it’s a small group they could enjoy it or if they go out to Hol Chan or whenever it is it’s not overcrowded rush rush rush like a Cancun. So we need to make sure that we could continue to protect that niche as to why is it that people believe that this uniqueness of Belize. And so that was our message to them. We welcome you, we want to work with you, you want to join us in setting up investing in the cruise port you are welcome to do so to be able to provide the necessary infrastructure for especially these super cruise ships that are being built but it must be done within the environmental standards of the country.”

The meeting with the cruise lines took place in Miami on October 20.