If you haven't seen it yet, Channel 5 and some other media are reporting that the Ministry of Home Affairs headed by Ralph Fonseca, of the Belize Government has issued a TRAVEL BAN prohibiting entry into Belize by travelers from Canada and five other countries -- People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore and India.

Belizeans are advised not to travel to these countries, but apparently a ban has not been issued in this respect.

Details are still sketchy. Apparently even the Belize Tourist Board was not informed in advance of this ban.

If true, in my opinion this is one of the most incredibly ill-advised action I've ever seen the Belize Government take. It will have MAJOR impact on tourism to Belize, especially from Canada, which traditionally accounts for around 15% of visitors to Belize.

--Lan Sluder
www.belizefirst.com

If they are not letting in Canadians and as I understand it, will be restricting people off of the cruise ships as well, does that mean that American's can get off the ship but Canadian's can't. Or does it mean that the cruise ships might just as well keep going and not stop in for a while?

Who knows what it means? When you are dealing with the Belize government, it's hard to say.

Except that Belize tourism is in for some hard times.

--Lan Sluder

I wonder if this has something to do with the SARS virus cases in those countries.

more on this here:
//ambergriscaye.com/message/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=002038

Hello! Yes, it has to do with SARS cases! I for one, am glad to see countries doing something about it before it gets worse/out of control. It is not just Belize--this advice comes from the World Health Organization. No one should travel to Toronto. And, personally, I hope, until this clears up, no one from Toronto, or Asia, does much traveling at all.

We have 5 working respirators in the country and I think the concern was about having a supercarrier in a small country and spreading the virus. Trying to figure out exactly what it all means, but I know the docs here have all been very concerned about containing possible infections and many have been lobbying govt to do something about the cruise ship visitors, especially after Norfolk virus spread so quickly. Anyway, good thing is they can back peddle after they take a sober look at the problem, affect it can have and possibilities of either. Some seriously smart people have jumped into this and it should be sorted out quickly and revised if needed.

Windsor, we're not talking about recommending against travel to Toronto (which is what the WHO did -- **recommend** against).

We're talking about Belize banning ALL Canadians from coming to Belize.

--Lan Sluder

Gee, I wonder why the Belize government didn't ban travel from Taiwan. After all, there have been 37 cases reported there (and probably lots more unreported) while there has been only one case in India, from which the Belize government also banned travel.

I'm sure it had nothing to do with all the aid dollars Taiwan has poured into Belize.

--Lan Sluder

I understand that the complete Canada ban was a solo action and will probably be revised to conform to the WHO advisory.

Mary