I was at that meeting yesterday. The BTIA has no problem with Royal Caribbean, its only Carnival Cruises. Carnival Cruises caters to a lower class (for lack of a better term) customer, and its management seems to reflect that same mentality. I hope that the tourism stakeholders in Belize make so much of a fuss that they get tired of the rass and go somewhere else (with their haul-yur-ass glass of beer).
I thought this quote was appropriate yesterday:
Lucy Fleming (Chaa Creek) - New BTIA President
"We are not against cruise ship tourism, we are for cruise ship tourism, it is one of our sectors but what we are totally against is the unregulated growth of this sector. We feel that Carnival is the bull in the china shop and we are frightened that this bull will ruin our merchandise and scare off our customers. We're wondering why we weren't consulted as leaders in the tourism industry. We are wondering why our minister was not consulted, nor his ministry, nor the Belize Tourism Board. So we would want some answers from government. And once we have those answers we'll be able to entertain further how we feel. But as of now, no, we are not appreciative that a contract has been signed without bringing us into play because after all we are the heart and sould of the tourism industry in this country."
AmbergrisCaye.com 
