Cruise ships targeted.The government is looking into establishing the country's first per-passenger cruise tax, while beach towns that no longer want to serve as a mere backdrop for the US$15 billion cruise industry are beginning to reconsider their openness to the big ships. Recently, Belize sought to limit the number of cruise ship passengers, capping them at 8,000 per day after 13,000 people disembarked into the tiny Caribbean nation all at once. This is equivalent to a sudden 5 percent increase in the country's population. The cruise ship tax has support from groups ranging from local hotel owners to environmentalists, who say the ships leave few benefits in their wake, the Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. reported. The number of cruise ship passengers arriving in Mexico has tripled over the past decade, feeding this discontent. The Tourism Secretariat Secretariat, 1970–89, thoroughbred race horse. Trained by Lucien Laurin and ridden by Ron Turcotte, Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes to capture the Triple Crown in 1973. Secretariat (foaled 1970) U.S. submitted a proposal on July 28 to charge between US$5 and US$10 for each of the more than 5 million cruise passengers who visit Mexico annually, the AP reported. Similar tax proposals are making headway head·way n. 1. Forward movement or the rate of forward movement, especially of a ship. 2. Progress toward a goal. 3. The clear vertical space beneath a ceiling or archway; clearance. 4. across the Caribbean, home to almost half of all the world's cruise voyages. The Mexican tax proposal represents a victory for Playa del Carmen Playa del Carmen is a city on the coast of the Caribbean Sea in the north east of the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico, located at 20.62° North, 87.07° West. The city is the seat of the Solidaridad municipality. , a Caribbean beach town that last year became one of the first ports in the region to reject a cruise ship dock unless the industry paid a fee for local development. "There have been shows of support from other towns, and this position is becoming generalized throughout the Caribbean," Playa del Carmen spokesman Angel Torres told the AP. During a public comment period on Mexico's new cruise policy in 2003, a tax to benefit local economies was one of the main demands of Caribbean beach towns. Industry leader Carnival Cruise Lines This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. dismissed the demands for a tax, arguing cruise companies already pay a significant amount in local service charges. However, in Mexico, those port fees go to private harbor management companies--not local communities. And the stores that line cruise docks are often owned or leased by the cruise companies themselves. The industry appears ready to fight any increase, no matter how small. It pressed Belize for a five-year moratorium A suspension of activity or an authorized period of delay or waiting. A moratorium is sometimes agreed upon by the interested parties, or it may be authorized or imposed by operation of law. on a proposed $2 increase in its $5 passenger tax. Belize had planned to use the money to protect its coral reefs coral reefs, limestone formations produced by living organisms, found in shallow, tropical marine waters. In most reefs, the predominant organisms are stony corals, colonial cnidarians that secrete an exoskeleton of calcium carbonate (limestone). and jungles. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion