Tourism Sector Boasts Record Growth Following Aggressive Marketing Campaigns

The Ministry of Tourism and Diaspora Relations has boasted a steady growth in the sector with record-breaking overnight tourism visitor arrivals. Since the industry was brought to its knees by the COVID-19 pandemic, it has seen a tremendous rebound. The ministry and the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) have tapped into new markets, attracting visitors from across the globe with an aggressive marketing campaign. Minister of Tourism and Diaspora Relations Anthony Mahler appeared on “The Morning Show” to discuss the tourism industry’s numbers and efforts to continue improving Belize’s tourism product. 

Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism: “Like the private sector always, the tourism industry is 24-7/-365, no break, no stop, you have to continue to go. And so we have embraced that mentality as well in the public sector even though the thrust of the work is being done by the BTB, which is a statutory board, but still public sector. First of all, we have to remember where we came from. When we got into government in 2020, we’re in the midst of COVID, and serious economic strain here in the country, global issues in terms of supply chain during that whole period. So for us coming and navigating through all of that to where we are now setting record-breaking numbers for overnight arrivals is a huge, huge task and a huge accomplishment. Coming in tremendous numbers, 50,000 consistently and that is important for occupancy. It is important for people spending on food and beverage. It is important for tours, tour operations. We have a lot of rain. I’ve spoken to a lot of private sector people that they’ve had to cancel so hopefully the rain eases up. So we’re seeing improvements in the Mexican market. Like I said, that’s doubled. We’re seeing improvement in the Central American market. That is important. That’s a focus on us because we believe that as long as we could get additional airlift out of Central America it could be a huge, huge market for us, millions and millions of people in Central America. We are working, like I said, on Europe and South America and we’re also starting to look at how we can get out of Taiwan and other Asian countries that have a connection with Belize somehow.”

Mahler also noted that apart from improving infrastructure and implementing various beautification projects nationwide, his ministry is working to improve the services provided by Belizean professionals in the hospitality sector.

Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism: “I think at the end of this year directly because we don’t quantify all the other parts we just look at directly you’re talking somewhere close to $1.5 billion dollars in revenues and so now we have to focus more on how we have more Belizean inclusion in terms of the management of the industry how we get them more skilled so training is an important part of us we’re working with international agencies in building out this training institute and hopefully soon we could inaugurate that as well as a building. The programs are being designed to happen virtually and without a center. The center just houses the administration and some of the training classes and stuff like that. But we’re working on that right now and that is crucial for us, having our people highly trained, highly skilled in providing the best level of service throughout the entire country. But that is crucial and we didn’t touch training at all. So I wanted to end off on that. It is important that we put our best foot as a nation forward. So the experiences from the airport with customs and immigration, I still hear a lot of horror stories no matter how much training we do for them it seems to be a cultural thing. That has to be, that we have to have a seismic shift there and a change in mindset for us to really provide that level of service throughout the industry.”

The country has been featured in various international travel magazines in the past three years.