However, despite these positive developments, Belize falls behind other ports of call in a number of ways and there are a range of concerns about the impacts of cruise tourism, its benefits compared with stayover tourism, and expansion plans which include accommodating more ships and more duty-free shopping. Particularly significant are differences in amount of money cruise passengers and stayover tourists spend locally, both per day and per visit. The average cruise passenger spends $44 per day that goes into the local economy (another fraction returns to the cruise company), while the average stayover visitor spends $96
per day, or more than twice as much. Per visit, stayover visitors spend on
average 6.8 days in Belize, which translates into an average of $653, or over 14
times more than the average cruise passenger. In this regard, Belize is not
unique: studies in Dominica, Costa Rica and Honduras have found roughly
similar differences in spending patterns between cruise passengers and stayover
visitors.6 Yet in Belize cruise passenger spending is particularly low—57% below
the Caribbean average.