CRUISING: DESTINATION NOWHERE - Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism - page 109

murky political system, it is impossible to find out what that per passenger fee is and wheth-
er it goes into the city treasury.)
In a study with the Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development, the Belize
tourism board found that cruise ship passengers spent an average of $44 on land, not the
$100 average cited by the cruise industry. The tourism board commissioned the study out
of disappointment that passengers on the cruise ships were not helping the economy as
promised. The study warned of an “inherent tension between the objectives of the cruise
industry and those of Belize.”
By contrast, tourists who came by land to Belize spent at least $96 a day and $653 per
visit. Costa Rica's figure for cruise passengers was similar to that of Belize, with an average
of $44.90. In Europe, an impartial study found passenger spending in Croatia averaged
about $60 in 2007.
After our cruise I spoke to Anna Dominguez-Hoare, the executive director of the Belize
Audubon Society, who worries about the effect of cruise ship excursions on the fragile eco-
systems of the country. Belize has one of the region's most diverse populations of birds,
many of which spend the winter months in Belize's tropical forests before returning north
in the summertime to the backyards of many of the visiting tourists. And while she wel-
comes tourism, Ms. Dominguez-Hoare says that cruise tourism has presented more prob-
lems than it is worth. She said that the small head tax paid by cruise ships doesn't begin to
cover the damage that cruise passengers cause during their short stay.
“Goff's Caye has really been trampled now. Locals avoid it,” she said, describing an is-
land near the Belize port where tourists can snorkel and then feast on barbecue. “Most of
the wildlife has fled [from Goff's Caye], but that is fine because these cruise tourists are
less sensitive to protecting habitat of birds or monkeys, or protecting coral reef. If there is
garbage strewn everywhere, you know the tourists came from cruise ships.”
To her mind and those of other conservationists, keeping cruise ship passengers restric-
ted to a few areas—sacrifice zones—could prevent irreversible damage. Ms. Dominguez-
Hoare said she isn't opposed to cruise ships in theory but that the numbers are getting
out of hand. Excursions of several hundred people descending on a wildlife preserve for a
few hours can be disastrous. “Our parks weren't made for that kind of an invasion and the
guides can't control the tourists.
“Is there some port, some destination, where they were able to find a balance?” she
asked.
When I put that question to James Sweeting, the Royal Caribbean vice president for
environmental stewardship, he said, “That is a very good question.
“That is the biggest challenge of my job,” he said in an interview, “to convince des-
tinations to make long-term investment in their destinations. I know a lot of government
people see us as a problem, which is ironic since they are beating down our doors to get
the cruise ships coming.”