And, the BTIA Belize Tourism Industry Association - which has a seat on the BTB's Board of Directors - has given its support to the initiative.
Though that support is not unanimous within the BTIA - President Stuart Krohn says that a majority of the membership does support the idea of a traveler's insurance.
Speaking to us today via Zoom from Naia Resort in Placencia he said he too was skeptical at first but warmed up to what he feels is a good marketing initiative:
Steward Krohn - President, BTIA
"When I was initially informed about it, I was kind of naturally opposed to it, for 2 main reasons, one was that it plays an additional burden financial burden on tourists coming in and I thought this would be a deterrent for tourists who already saddled with some of the highest extra charges in the region to come to Belize and secondly in it's original carnation, this was a mandatory plan that was tied to a single insurance company. I have been reasonably assured that the ability to sell this insurance is being thrown open to any insurance company that meets the minimum qualifications of integrity and reinsurance and the other is that given the evolving situation, that slight added cost of a visit to Belize given the omicron and perhaps future variants and the feeling that covid is here to stay, having insurance and knowing that everyone has to have insurance will actually make out visitors feel better because you got to understand looking at this thing from a visitors point of view, the worse nightmare any visitor to Belize can image, is coming to Belize and while you're here when your taking your test just before you go home, boom it's positive, so now your world is turned upside down because you can't leave Belize, you don't know when you're going to test negative, you're not sure who is going to pay for your hotel room, who's going to pay for your medical care should you need it. What this provision of insurance is it takes away all that worry and I would add personally at my resort, our intention is for all our visitors when they make reservations, we will pay their insurance premium for them. They way I have to look at it is Belize as a country is competing in the tourism with 200 other countries. In the region, it's every Caribbean country, it's Costa Rica, it's Mexico, it's a tough competition, anything that we can do to ease the mind of visitors is a good thing and I believe essentially again from the personal side, if I can offer my potential guest who are trying to decide whether to go to Costa Rica, Playa Del Carmen or Placencia, if I can entice them by saying look, I'm going to buy you a 50,000 insurance policy, that's gotta be a good thing and I can afford the 18 dollars, I think it's great marketing tool."
Jules Vasquez
"But not all of them can afford it, you will accept that."
Steward Krohn
"Well it's not a question of if you can afford to pay it, its can you afford not to pay it. I think that the mistake that BTB may have made is that by announcing this kind of without giving the details their leaving it open to a lot of speculations, so they have just come on the website and said, hey starting February 15th, you're going to need health insurance, details will follow. As usual, the devil is always in the details, people want to know the details, so when you tell a visitor on your website you're going to need health insurance, the first thing I would do if I'm a visitor, a I would be bummed out because they are telling me there is a new requirement and I'm tired of putting up with requirements and b if I still want to come to Belize I'm going to call up my insurance company and say, get me some health and travel insurance which might cost me a couple 100 dollars instead of 18 dollars."
Notably, while the press release says that the new insurance is "an effort to further protect the health and wellbeing of international visitors and Belizeans from COVID-19," there is absolutely no indication that this is a temporary measure for only as long as the pandemic persists. Every indication is that the insurance charge will continue to apply for the foreseeable future.
