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Burgos also spoke about the situation with the Bus Operators. They effectively lobbied for a ban on tourist busses coming in from Guatemala. They say they can and should transport these travellers within Belize.  

But, the European companies who run these tours out of Guatemala can’t work with that formula.  Burgos says that the bus ban threatens to severely impact the tourism industry:

John Burgos - Executive Director, BTIA
“The main thing that led that decision, was that they made a misinformed decision, they did not understand the entire tourism sector to see how that’s going to negatively impact. With regards to the phenomenon we cannot control, sargassum we cannot control it, we can only manage it but this is something we can control, so what we’re doing is we are cutting our wings, shooting ourselves in the foot. We’re hurting our industry and this European agent is mostly for European market, the European agents are telling us, listen if this policy remains in place, we are going to bypass Belize, they don’t have to come to Belize you know, you can do directly from Mexico to Guatemala. Right now, these tours have been pressed from a year ago, so they have to honour those commitments, they are not going to refund, we’re going to take whatever loss and we’re going to adjust but next year, this remains, we’re not going go come. Are we willing to stop 10 to 15 percent of tourism arrivals into Belize? I have no issue with blocking the regular buses that want to do what the Belize bus owners are doing, you should not be getting any runs in Belize, these guys are not, these guys are tour buses.â€￾

“In terms of challenges, we’re very concerned right now, there are phenomenon that are out of our control, we cannot handle. Sargassum is impacting the entire Yucatan Peninsula, Quintana Roo, Belize and all islands in the Caribbean. Those things are beyond our control, what we can do is learn, make it to be more efficient at managing and reducing the negative impacts but then you have the situation of safety and security, increase in crime, that’s something that trickles down to the tourism industry, we know that has impact.â€￾

The President of the Belize Bus Association says he has come to understand the difficulties with the ban and is agreeable to a compromise and an adaption period.