Cruise tour Operator Lukewarm About PGIA Opening

Last night, we showed you the announcement from the Barrow Administration that the Philip Goldson International Airport would be re-opening on August 15th.

The re-opening is part of a phased recovery plan for the rebooting of the tourism industry, which has been on a hiatus for 3 months now. With no work and no revenue source, they have been waiting for a definitive answer on the re-opening of the airport.

Last night, you saw how both the Belize Tourism Industry Association and the Belize Hotel Association are hitting the ground running. They want to productively use those remaining 7 weeks to prepare for the slow return of tourists. So, we went looking for the perspective of another tourism stakeholder who was calling for the government not to rush the reopening.

He's Yhony Rosado, the outspoken, local tour operator - who works with cruise ships. Rosado and his employees are currently in the midst of the same money worries as the bigger tourism interests. He hasn't earned any revenue for his tour company since, the end of March when the State of Emergency began.

Today, he told us that while he is worried that the rest of the world is still struggling with ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, he can understand why the Barrow Administration is choosing to reopen the country for tourism business in mid-August:

Yhony Rosado - Independent Tour Operator
"We, the people, did our part for our country, and our government, to not get infected. And, we won. But now, the economic part, it's different. Finance is running out. The desperation is getting there."

"I'm here today, Mr. Ortiz, to let you know that I totally understand the decision of the Government of Belize. I totally understand because I was not the one, or we, the masses of the poor people were not the ones protesting out there, burning tires, or doing anything like they're doing in Central America to open up the country. We did not do anything like that. It was the rich people of this country that, through emails, and through the intellectuals, they pressured our government. And our Government knows that we're running out of fuel. We're running out of our cash."

"I was against the opening of the airport a little bit too soon. As you know, every week, every day, there's some medication. There's some - we're winning the battle against the coronavirus in the scientific world, in the medical world, where we get a new answer for this virus. So, the longer we take, it was better for us, Little Belize, because we are not infected. We're not infested."

"I did make a comment in our press conference as FECTAB, before we got infected, to close our country. And I made a comment after, please don't open our airport. And now, the Government has [decided to] open the airport, either if it is his wisdom, or he was being pressured."

"According to them, everybody that will come to Belize will be coming [in] clean. If anybody comes infected and infects the country, it's not a tour guide or a tour operator, nobody is to be blamed. It is no one but themselves. And so, this is where I get a voice as an average Belizean person, We will do our due diligence."

Channel 7