Next week 70 local tour operators, hotels, and other tourism service providers will meet 90 potential buyers from North America and Europe. They will converge at BETEX - the biennial tourism expo. It opens on July 30th but the tour operators, hoteliers, and other involved agencies such as the coast guard were at the Biltmore this morning for a pre-event meeting. BTIA’s Executive Director Andrew Godoy says this year the script for BETEX has been flipped.
Andrew Godoy, BTIA Executive Director
“It is very costly we know for local buyers and local suppliers to international trade shows and so in essence what we do is try and bring these people to Belize who have a genuine interest in selling Belize. I must say though that the format for BETEX has changed somewhat. It is a whole new format that we’ve embarked on for 2008. The reason is because after every BETEX we do a questionnaire and we ask the invited wholesalers and travel agents what are their opinion on the show and how to improve the show and some of the things they’ve mentioned is that they would want to see the show grow, they would want to see more interaction, they would want to see more interaction, more visits to the various destinations.
In previous years we used to have a central market place at the Princess Hotel if you remember. This year what we’re doing is that we’re having a decentralized marketing place so we’re bringing these international buyers and wholesalers into the country and the first night there is an opening night hosted by the Tourism Board and then on the second day we do a seminar in the morning just to kind of get them involved in what’s going to happen over the next couple days and it is all expeditions after that.
Why I mention this is revolutionary is that this type of format has never been used for trade shows in any other part of the world so for us we are actually testing this year and so far it really looks good, from the response that we’ve gotten – both from the international buyers and the local suppliers.”
Local tourism providers can still sign up by contacting the Belize Tourism Industry Association or by visiting Betex.bz.
