from a friend....

You know, I'm beginning to suspect that the current GOB is intentionally
trying to kill overnight tourism. Their latest shenanigans involve
repairing airport runways in the middle of the tourist season. They did it
last year to Caye Caulker. They did it in December (over the busiest
Christmas holidays) to Dangriga, and now it's Placencia's turn - during
February, the absolute busiest month of the year. (Couldn't any of these
runways have been repaired in the summer or fall when fewer tourists are
about?)

When you think about such a plan, it makes sense. Make the life of
overnight tourist operations as difficult as possible, so much so that they
give up and call it quits. That way, you get rid of a lot of people who
open their big mouths too much to protest government actions (or inactions).
And, overnight tourism isn't the personal cash cow of high placed
individuals, and doesn't present the money-laundering and drug smuggling
opportunities that cruise tourism purportedly does.

Although . . there's the Belize City debacle with the GOB refusing to
participate in the City's operations, the cost of which are greatly
increased by cruise tourism, with the City getting little or no benefit from
cruise tourism.

So maybe the GOD doesn't have any sort of diabolical plan with respect to
overnight tourism at all . . . it's just plain inept, disorganized,
ineffectual and clueless when it comes to actually helping the country as a
whole, rather than a few connected and already-wealthy individuals.

Truly, this is unbelievable.