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

Guys, Phil is 100% correct, you need to stop comparing apples and cheese...
Anywhere else and you have much larger population than Belize, do you really think all the airlines survive on tourist? Come-on... a lot of places have business travelers and the residents/citizens of those countries who have a much better per capita income than Belizeans..and as such travel more and fill the seats, Belize is better than most places.. agreed..
Try this out for size... get together with all the various resorts and hotels, choose the airlines that you feel need to drop their cost to help your situation, then approach the airline/airlines with a plan to sell package deals, if you can get together enough hotels/resorts to sell packages deals and guarantee the airlines the flights will have a marketable load factor then you win because you will fill your rooms and cover your investment. Let us say small resorts/hotels, pay 10% of their possible income per month and the larger resorts/hotels pay 20% towards covering cost to guarantee loads.Is cost really that much, lets say they need 40 seats extra to make a profit, 40 seats x 350USD = 14000 USD x 1flight (week) x 4flights (month) = 56,000 USD x 3 if you like for 3 times a week = 168,000USD that let's say 50 resort/hotels may get together and put up the collateral for their exclusive packages to their resort/hotels only, get my drift? If you were to split that up evenly that would be 3,360 USD per month for each place! and your looking at in influx of 40seats x 4 x 3 = 480 extra tourist!
approximately 10 tourist per resort/hotel, that means 10 tourist just cost you 336 USD only! So its a win-win situation! You don't need to follow this formula, but work out something that is going to benefit your guys, come together and it will happen.
Mention was made of other Caribbean islands, Grenada, Tobago etc.. A lot of the flights into these islands are indirect, in other words.. to Tobago, you fly first to Trinidad which has a population of 1.3million then on the local airlines to Tobago. BA tried a direct flight to Tobago and it did not work..
Grenada, passengers are not just going to Grenada they are also traveling to the Grenadines and St. Vincent which are another 6 islands besides Grenada, some even go to St. Lucia from there or Trinidad.. that is why you cannot compare.. the airlines are always full going to these places, they are selling a few left over seats cheap to fill the flight..
I will approach a friend I know on the tourism board in Belize and ask them what they think? Maybe the government can chip in something because at the end of the day everyone benefits.

Sorry, no comparison numbers here. I have been dealing with only Belize for the last 12 years. I am out of the loop on the other islands/countries. (But I am starting to re think this "niche" - too small with the economy the way it is.) Hmmmm...Barb's Belize and Beyond...??? ;-)

i was interested to see in an story on Channel 5 about the decline of tourism in Belize (specifically San Pedro), a couple of the people interviewed mentioned the high airfares hurting tourism.

San Pedro feeling the pinch of declining tourist arrivals
It's the high season in the Tourism Industry but if you visited La Isla Bonita, the number one tourist destination, you wouldn't know because the island is not experiencing the hustle and bustle of the season. It is officially known that the number of stay over visitors has decreased by five point two percent and that tourism expenditure fell by three point two percent to three hundred and ninety-two million dollars since the beginning of the year. Marion Ali headed to San Pedro and has a report.

Marion Ali, Reporting
Tourists, Sherry and Jeff Fink are among the dwindling number of visitors to Belize over the past few months. Like many other travellers, the couple is concerned about what the future has in store, but they have decided to put aside those fears at least for now.

Sherry Fink, Tourist
"Now in retirement I want to do a little bit of travelling and so the recession hasn't stopped us, no."

Jeff Fink, Tourist
"When I was telling a lot of my friends that we're going on this trip and everything, they were saying how lucky and how we can afford it and everything and I just tell them well we saved for it and we have to treat ourselves to these little vacations otherwise it's not working. Working isn't worth it then."

Low tourist arrivals have been crippling stakeholders in the industry, including the domestic air carriers…

Jenaro Nunez, Employee, Maya Island Air, San Pedro
"Coming in December we noticed last year was much better than right now and the booking is pretty slow right now."

… And tour and taxi businesses.

Marcus Alamina, San Pedro dive Master
"They used to come in high numbers but they have declined. So we need to hit other countries and have other guests coming in from other countries even if we have to learn to speak their language; something but try getting them here."

Pedro Chable, San Pedro Taxi Driver
"Hardly any people getting off the planes so it's pretty critical. You can see that we're very, very low in tourism this year"

Marion Ali
"How are you all coping with that?"

Pedro Chable
"Going back to the bank and doing bank loans and trying to see if finally this pick up so we can start paying our bills back again."

Marion Ali
"While everyone agrees that it is the global recession that has the economy in such dire straits, there are many here at home who believe that there are things that can be done to ease the burden, and they're calling on their local representatives to intervene."

Alfonso Wiltshire, San Pedro Taxi Driver
"You can fly from Cancun to the US for a hundred and eighty-six dollars round trip. Why does airfare in Belize is so ridiculously expensive? Here in San Pedro, all of us taxi drivers here sometimes like yesterday-you're not asking me my business-but yesterday how much I did yesterday? Twenty-four dollars. You think I can live with that?"

Kevin Reppuhn, San Pedro Entrepreneur
"Everyone feels that the airfares are high, higher than surrounding countries especially Mexico and Cancun obviously."

But while it has been dismal, local bodies in San Pedro are trying to see how they can help.

Amy Leiva, BTB Administrator Mgr, San Pedro
"We support the private sector, we want them to aggressively target the tourists out there to come to Belize and we support that initiative. Our minister is also the minister for civil aviation and there is a board that is tackling that problem with the airfare."

Marion Ali
"So that should come on-stream how soon?"

Amy Leiva
"2010."

Marion Ali
"People have been calling on the authorities, local representatives, to pitch and try to do something; rescue the situation. Can that be done and if so what can be done?"

Severo Guerrero, Town Councillor, San Pedro
"Maybe it can be done. I don't know. Maybe it needs some more studies to be done. A lot of people are saying-I'm a tour guide-a lot of people tell me the prices to come from the states, the airfare is pretty high. We can do more promotions on Belize but actually like on the airfare I think it's more on Central Government."

Until that happens, the industry will depend on tourists like Judy Jacobs to experience Belize.

Judy Jacobs, Tourist
"Been here ten days and looking forward to going home. If we can't leave, we can't come back."

Reporting for News Five, Marion Ali.

The only business which showed a decent occupancy rate currently was Sun Breeze Suites, which also had bookings into Easter of 2010.

From Slickrock....

Air rates to Belize finally went down in 22 out of 24 cities that we watch!



These prices were for arriving in Belize January 14, and departing January 24, 2010.

I had no idea Mr. trumpet had so much clout! I will treat him better when I see him in February.

yes but the tickets are at odd times and often require a layover. Such as I fly out of CLT I can't get dates I need and most you have to lay over in MIA then fly back to CLT the next day. Good prices but you have to be able to travel when the price is cheap.

not necessarily, mary - i was looking thru newark & philly today - flights were the same ones i always take - fly out 6am, feet in sand by 1pm.

If you live in Michigan there are some great flights in Feb out of Flint (FNT) to BZE on Delta, under $500. One stop in Atlanta each way, no overnights.
Very tempting....

So, what has happened and by whom? Why all of a sudden have flights dropped like a rock? Did we cause it? BTB? GOB? Airlines in general?

I think it is now evident that the Airlines control the price point and can and will drop prices from time to time. Drives me almost as wild as OPEC.