CAPTAIN SINBAD
Contributor
I think you don't understand the fact that tourism is a big part of Honduras' GDP, it indirectly funds a lot of things in the rest of country like roads, schools, police stations, social programs... and directly funds a lot of people in the tourist zones by providing pay checks for them through having a job directly related to tourism like dive master, waiter, hotel clerk and then multiplies indirectly through the community through those people spending their paychecks at the gas station, the grocery store, the furniture store...
If you realize the importance of tourism in this country you understand the importance of providing tourists a means to keep being a tourist in that country- being able to fly in and out of it. So yes as boggling as it may seem, it's really important to spend a small amount of your resources on something like the airport to ensure the huge return on the investment you get year after year.
Not everyone in Roatan wants to make their living doing 110 ft bounce dives 40 times a day on a cramped death trap of a lobster boat until you are paralyzed for life from decompression sickness.
But I am sure that you understand that a tourist who goes to Honduras for a week spends a total of 10080 minutes on that island. Out of those 10080 minutes, 90 minutes are spent at the airport. This amounts to 1.1% if his total vacation time.
While you demand that these guys some how fix that 1% of your tourist experience, let us also keep in mind that their ability to fix anything is connected to their economic reality. Honduras is the second poorest country in Central America with 75% of the entire population classified as poor by international standards; not by American standards but by international standards. An average person there works a full year to earn 580 USD. Imagine yourself in a job that paid 580 a year. Now imagine if there is no rain, you have no water to drink and you have to get it from a polluted stream. You know your kids will be sick after drinking that and when they do, there is no hospital. but you have no choice.
And no, tourism is not the bread and butter of Honduras. Agriculture on the other hand is. Sugar, palm oil and coffee is what keeps most of them alive. Apparel industry and wood products also help. You and I, with our 34 dollars of departure tax are really not keeping that nation alive no matter how much it suits us to believe.