Andrade Says The B.t.b. Is Working To Improve Visitor Experience

According to Andrade, the reason for the number of cancellations is that both vessels would have visited Belize an average of seven times each during the course of the high season.  As to the dissatisfaction of the cruise lines in the Belize experience, Andrade attests that there isn’t much for visitors to do in the Old Capital. He adds that conscious efforts are being made by B.T.B., as well as other stakeholders within the Fort George Tourism Zone, to improve the quality of the overall experience.

Valdemar Andrade, Director of Destination Planning & Cruise, B.T.B.

“When two ships are deployed to any country they call on multiple days throughout the year.  Carnival is our biggest client, they call year-round so those ships would have had fourteen calls total to Belize and so that is why you have fourteen calls from only two ships.”

Reporter

“Meaning that they visit more than once.”

Valdemar Andrade

Valdemar Andrade

“They visit more than once for the year.”

Isani Cayetano

“Has there been a complaint with regards to Carnival’s dissatisfaction with doing business in Belize?”

Valdemar Andrade

“Okay, let me tell you that as a whole we have since, the B.T.B. has designated a desk for cruise.  We have been in discussions with the cruise lines, all of them, Carnival included, and we are fully aware that our guest experience, we have two types of guest experience we have for our destination.  One: for everybody that goes on tour they have an excellent time, you know, because they go to the Mayan temples, they go cave-tubing and we normally get very good hits off those tours.  For people who stay in Belize City proper, then we have a complete opposite, the guest experience is a challenge for us and we have been putting in place many measures.  In fact, just this year we partnered with the Small Business Development Center and we trained forty-seven people or the stakeholders in the Fort George Tourism Zone to be able to manage their businesses better.  Entrepreneurship, marketing their business, understanding their customer, pricing their product to be able to drive and let people understand what is a better way and a better approach in guests.”