AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums Talk Belize Travel An open letter about the cost of airfare

Such a deal... $844.45 r/t from Miami plus add those pesky departure fees that American does not include in the ticket price. If you happen not to live in driving distance to Miami you'll need to add the round trip airfare to get there.

I can't believe they bother to post this as a Net SAAver special price - it's a big $13 off the "regular" one way fare of $405.

Wouldn't fuel surcharge apply to all flights? I can't imagine the airlines just applying a surcharge on flights to BZE... I think surcharges and baggage charges have been dropped on Air Canada, don't understand why they haven't been dropped on US airlines... Back to the question, how can Cancun offer such cheap flights and Belize can't??? Gov't/Tourist Board subsidy????? It's time for Belize to decide if it wants a tourism industry or not.

Check this out;

Miami - Barcelona $460
Miami - Belize $870

Northern Canuck and anyone else that thinks Belize can do significantly more. Have you read the entire thread. All your points are answered and confirmed and I've explained why Belize is incapable of Government subsidy as Mexico etc. can offer. Belize wants tourism. It is an Industry run by the stakeholders with little help from Governmnet - other than the use of the Hotel Tax - and it is self sustaining. I don't know the visitor numbers to other places to compare an industry country vs country. I'd hoped someone like Barb or Lan Sluder or perhaps TravelQueen would give some extra info on this as well as airline breakdowns and potential reasons it costs so much more.

Pulling numbers from the sky for an example. If just a 15% subsidy was given to the airlines as an incentive on an $800 average fare, based on our typical annual visitor count it would bring a bill of US$21M. We dont have enough schools, roads, hospitals, electricity, food, water etc etc for our population at the moment - where in the hell would they find this amount of money. The Whole Country has a little over 6000 rooms - less than one Hotel in las Vegas. If that cost was transferred to stakeholders on each room it is an annual bill of US$3,400 - per room per Hotel. With the National Occupancy running at around 50% are you starting to see why it is not possible for a small second world (at best) country to keep up with the big boys.

I resent the implication of if we want it enough. We battle it day in, day out, and work our arses off trying to sustain it and I think we have the best product in the Caribbean, bar none. Sometimes good things cost a bit more.

Spokane Wa to San Salvador $708.00
" " to BZE $896.00

El Salvador ain't no better off than Belize, don't you think.

phil, i hear ya, but then how are poor places like punta cana able to pull it off? if i'd never been to bz and was looking around, based on price, i'd pick somewhere else.

On Punta Cana, understand that the Dominican Republic gets over 2 1/2 million international tourists a year, 10 times as many as Belize.

The reason is simple: Low prices for package vacations, mostly from Europe.

Punta Cana has big, cheap, all-inclusive hotels. Several of the 80 or 90 hotels in Punta Cana have 700 or 800 rooms, and I'm sure that there are more hotel rooms in Punta Cana, DR, alone than in the entire country of Belize.

However, most people in Belize (and on this forum) say they don't want big low-priced resorts in Belize.

...

On a separate point, air fares to Belize are high right now and are high much of the year. BUT, at times there are still deals. For example, my kids flew down to join me in Belize in June. My daughter paid US$325 roundtrip including all taxes and fees from Charlotte, and my son paid US$350 from Boston.

--Lan Sluder

thanks, lan - i understand. not thrilled about it, but i understand.

my mom used to say something like 'good things never come easy' - since you're right, and we DONT prefer mega resorts - i guess this is no exception.

Phil: I have read the whole thread. I am not suggesting mega-resorts either (God forbid) but other caribbean islands similar to Belize can convince airlines to drop their prices and in turn increase tourism... I suggested earlier (and in a related thread) that the GOB raise money to subsidize tourism (and maybe health and education would benefit directly or as a result of increased tourist dollars) by raising land taxes for those non citizens who own property in Belize. The only response to that was that that would stop the owners from going to Belize. Do you really believe that a wealthy American, Canadian or Brit who had invested $200,000-500,000 in a property would stop visiting, sell, or walk away from his condo or house for the sake of ... say maybe an extra $800.00 to $1000.00 or even $2000.00??? Phil, no one seriously addressed that idea. Maybe it's time the gov't starts to think 'outside the box' (as other governments have) and come up with solutions instead of having a hands off approach and letting tourist's dollars (and in turn progress) go elsewhere.

Lan, do you have numbers for Grenada, St. Vincent, Tobago, St. Kitt's & Nevis, St. Martin or Roatan?