The results of a survey on the current state of the tourism is in and as expected -the news isn’t good. The Belize Tourism Industry Association surveyed hotels, tour operators, food vendors, and other tourism stakeholders in May and the results were released at its bi-annual general meeting today at the Radisson Hotel. The survey results show that there is a decline in tourist arrivals and a decrease in income for the sector. The only upside is that stakeholders are optimistic that the industry will rebound. But optimism will only get you so far – which is why today BTIA President Dionne Miranda called on government through the Belize Tourist Board to do more.
Dionne Miranda, BTIA President
“We did a survey to see the true state of the tourism industry and that is one of the biggest thing that is being discussed today, what efforts do we need to mitigate some of the consequences of this recession, how can we improve our product because we need to be prepared.”
Keith Swift,
How bad is it?
Dionne Miranda,
“Amazingly Keith it is not as bad for certain areas but it is bad for certain areas. It has been mixed. Cruise tourism has seen an increase based on the issues that have been happening within Mexico but when it comes to small tour guides and tour operators, they’ve seen that a lot of people coming into Belize are no longer going on tours, they just want to stay in the hotel and eat, drink, and that’s it. In fact large hotels have been mentioning to us that people have been bringing their food and their drinks into their hotels and this is not something that has been normal so there has been a downturn.”
Keith Swift,
Is BTB doing enough?
Dionne Miranda,
“To be honest with you we’d love to see a lot more statistics and information because marketing can’t be done void of information and we’d love to have a lot more information. The statistics from 2008 haven’t come out yet so how can you react on a marketing perspective until you have that. They are working well with us but we need to see innovation, we need to see change, we need to see passion in terms of the marketing effort.”
The Belize Tourism Industry Association has 660 members and nine branches. An initiative announced at today’s meetings is to house all of BTIA’s partner agencies such as the Belize Hotel Association under one roof to consolidate efforts.
