Belize Tourism Board Promotes Belize as Dive Destination at International Trade Show in New Orleans

The Belize Tourism Board (BTB) and various stakeholders from the tourism industry are in New Orleans, USA this week promoting Belize as a dive destination. The BTB and its partners are attending the annual dive show hosted by the Diving Equipment and Marketing Association (DEMA). The DEMA Dive Show is one of the largest trade shows in the world and presents an opportunity for Belizean diving experiences to be promoted to various international markets. Althea Sebastian, Travel Trade Specialist with the BTB spoke to Love News about the work it took to prepare for the show and the importance of collaborating with the private sector. 

Althea Sebastian, Travel Trade Specialist, BTB: “Is one of the many shows that the BTB does in collaboration with our private sector partners. We feel that it is important to partner with them on these shows because while the Belize Tourism Board focuses on marketing and promotion, our private sector partners they are the ones who play a pivotal role as they are the ones that closes the sale. We’re playing a role as the Belize Tourism Board during our promotion and marketing and they’re the ones who are closing the sales to have these visitors, these dive enthusiasts, come to Belize. Booth Spaces are picked from like a year in advance. So these shows they tend to sell out really fast. Dima is one of the most popular dive shows so spaces sell out really quickly. So planning starts from like a year in advance and the private sector partners, you know, they gather together and decide what we’re going to do in terms of making it bigger and better for the next year. For example, this year we have, it’s been a while since COVID I think the last time the BTB was in attendance at this show was in 2019. Likewise most of our private sector partners that are here today. So for this 2023 show it’s a really great turnout like I said we have over 12 different private sector partners exhibiting here and so it’s going really well so far for us.”

The Belize Hotel Association (BHA) is among the stakeholders present at the dive show. BHA President Reynaldo Malic explained that it is important for Belizean businesses to attend the show and other trade shows like it due to the importance tourism holds for Belize’s economy. He said that with other countries increasing their marketing efforts to promote their destinations, attendance at trade shows has become even more crucial.

Reynaldo Malic, President, Belize Hotel Association: “If you talk about the importance of tourism in general when it comes to the Belize it’s probably up to now the last number we had in terms of GDP was 47-48% so it’s probably up to about 50 I would say. So it’s importance to the economy of Belize means that we have to drive in it. It won’t drive itself. And case in point is coming up to a trade show like the DIMA 2023 where there are hundreds of groups here, including other countries that are competing for their slice of the pie, so to speak. And there are countries here now, not only at DIMA but at the other trade shows that we go to that were not necessarily engaged aggressively in tourism before the pandemic. So now the pie is having to be sliced up quite a few more slices are having to come out of there now. We have our traditional players Belize being one of those really along with the Mexican destinations and then the Caribbean destinations like the Bahamas, Barbados but now like for instance Tobago from Trinidad and Tobago they’re starting to push hard now and then close to the home in Central America Costa Rica is here we see them at the shows now. Honduras are there coming to the shows, Salvador coming to the shows basically all of Central America is now coming to the shows as well. So like I said before that pie that was being sliced up before COVID it’s the same size pie we have to get some more slices of it. So it’s important for us to show up.”

The Dive Show began yesterday and will run until Friday.