The Belize Tourism Board has constantly been making efforts at highlighting Belize as a superb tourist destination. But what's the use of having tourist come and not having persons and places to service them. Keeping a keen eye on the exponential growth that tourism has taken on in recent years the BTB is now looking at the young people to carry on with ground work that has been put in place. In that vein, today 23 high school students from throughout the country made presentations on proposed ideas that can help boost the tourism industry.
Alfonso Noble reporting,
Farah Smith
This is a resort, Leila's Resort. It was discovered by a hurricane that hit in Belize. And now we have a Mayan ruin, a Mayan ruin was found on a beach, this is the beach, this is a sandy area, this is a restaurant and bar and this is the transportation that will get you to the resort. It's a beautiful resort, you can come and enjoy the mystical ruins on the beach. The resort, Leila's Resort is on the Placencia peninsula, so now we will try to develop it more and maybe we will hand it over to the government so that they can do their share in Belizean history.
Kelly Bouloy
As the tourists arrive, we provide sufficient parking for them. They move into the lobby where they are greeted by our friendly staff and receptionist. Then they are led to their cabanas and the adventure begins.
Alfonso Noble
Is this the size of the resort? I see five cabins, is this the size that it is going to be?
Kelly Bouloy
We have ten cabanas and in the future we are planning to expand to twelve or fifteen.
Tifara Brown
On the market, we notice that there are a lot of high-tech or high-classed hotels like the Radisson or the Princess and we decided that we would like to do something different. Give the tourist an outdoor experience so we provide the cabanas which give a very out-door feeling to the atmosphere, a country flair and its located on the outskirts of town. So we have a lot of nature adventures here.
Alfonso Noble
The purpose of the training course was to have the participants get a grasp of the dynamics of tourism. They were instructed in every aspect of the industry. They learnt everything from customer relations to business planning. For the BTB's Janine Alpuche, their objective of having Belize's youth involved in the tourism industry, was met.
Janine Alpuche
Our goal is to have taught the participants the dynamics of the industry and for them to look at the tourism industry as a viable career. They have a model of their business and they will present to a panel of judges as well as an audience comprised of parents and BTB representatives and the facilitators on their business plan telling them the details of the plan, what kind of tourist they cater to, where it is located, where they got their funding from and that kind of thing.
Farah Smith
We've learned a lot of things about Belizean history and the culture, about the reefs and rainforest of Belize and Belize is a quite nice and relaxing place for tourists to come and visit. If anyone out there who is trying to find a place to come and relax, I think everyone and anyone should choose Belize.
Alfonso Noble
With a pitch like that, we may be looking at the next generation of service providers who are getting an early start of being a part of one of the country's largest bread winners.
The BTB is planning on expanding the training course and making it into an annual event.