Belize Hosts 80th Regional Meeting of Mundo Maya to Boost Maya Heritage Preservation

The Government of Belize, represented by the Ministry of Tourism and Diaspora Relations, hosted the 80th Meeting of the Regional Commission of the Mundo Maya Organization (MMO) in San Pedro. Belize currently holds the Pro-Tempore Presidency and is seeking to improve the preservation and promotion of the cultural heritage of the Maya civilization through regional cooperation. Love News spoke with CEO of the Ministry of Tourism and Diaspora Relations, Nicole Usher, on the importance of strengthening relations between the Mundo Mayan countries. 

Nicole Usher, CEO, Ministry of Tourism: “The Mundo Maya organization has been in existence for over 30 years. So it is a combination or a regional cooperation between the countries of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. All of us come together and we bring a focus to the Maya history, heritage, the archaeological sites, anything that has to do with travel, for culture and history and heritage that’s common to all of our countries. And that’s what the focus is. So a lot of the discussion that we’re having today is surrounding the importance of promotion for our countries as one region. Belize has the presidency right now. So the presidency rotates from country to country for a period of two years, and Belize has the presidency for 2024 and 2025. So this is the second meeting we’re hosting in Belize under our presidency. And there are two major focus areas for the meetings in San Pedro today. We are having a continuation of our strategic planning session, so there’s a lot of discussion as to the new direction and the new focus for the Munda Maya organization, as well as the incorporation of the private sector, which is a big part of the strategy. Private sector, of course, is key to the success in the tourism industry. We can’t move forward as governments without the private sector engaged and involved. So we have, for the first time in recent years… the private sector participating in our meetings today. We have private sector here from Belize, so the Belize Tourism Industry Association, BTIA, has a rep here, we also have private sector from Guatemala and El Salvador.”

A highlight of the session is the finalization of the MMO’s strategic plan, a guiding framework for future operations and tourism projects that will advance the organization’s goals over the coming years. CEO Usher expressed the need for the framework to be equally beneficial for all. 

Nicole Usher, CEO, Ministry of Tourism: “Each one of our countries has its own plan for tourism. So what we need to do is we need to look at our individual strategies and see where we have commonalities and bring those together so that we can present ourselves as one region. So we’re looking at trying to improve travel, not only interregionally so residents from these countries but international travelers that want to come to not only Belize or not only Mexico or Guatemala, but do multi-destination travel. And it’s something that we’ve been talking about for years, and there are challenges, because obviously you have to have connectivity between the countries, you have to have good cross-border processes that make it easy for travelers because of course guest experience is key. So we need to look at these matters not only internally but the challenges that are faced by the region at large.”

Usher noted that future discussions would include updates on ongoing collaborations and a preview of key activities slated for early 2025.