New water taxi service opens

The news tonight is that Belize’s newest entry into the hotly competitive water taxi business had its first accident this afternoon when one of its boats ran into a pier in Caye Caulker. Our reports are that there were no serious injuries. It is also news that the service debuted last Friday without fanfare, or certainly without the level and type of scrutiny and controversy that signaled the last entry into the industry.

In July 2008, the San Pedro Belize Express debuted to fanfare and controversy to challenge the long established Caye Caulker Water Taxi Association in providing service primarily to the islands of Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker. It was controversial, provoking demonstrations, remonstrations and the Port Authority intervening to move fishing boats in the harbor.

The competition between the rivals soon prompted the radical slashing of prices to the point where there were some days when a one way fare to Caye Caulker from Belize City was reduced to just $5.00. But those days soon came to an abrupt end with two of the principals from the San Pedro Belize Express severing their ties with the company a little over a year or so later, in September 2009.

The pair, Giovanni Marin and Maribel Marin, still hungered apparently for the water taxi business, and having the political connections to Belize Rural South area representative Manuel Junior Heredia, and having successfully recruited former UDP Party Chairman and Port Loyola Representative Henry Young, today they are again back in the water taxi business with San Pedro Jet Express.

Following the Marins departure from San Pedro Belize Express, the company’s managers and operators and rivals Caye Caulker Water Taxi Association agreed to “co-opete,” that is jointly setting fares and sharing runs.  In May of this year the Marins petitioned the National Transport Board for a license to operate and today they are back in the business, operating out of a terminal from Birds Isle.
If there was any lesson learned from the previous entry into the industry it was that the pie can barely support the operators already invested, operating and existing. If there is any lesson to be learned is that the Barrow administration have become adept at re-inventing the wheel, ensuring new entries by the political connected can muscle their way in, and muscle long established entrepreneurs and operators out.

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