And with this much-needed gas infusion on the line, we wondered how the tourism industry is doing overall?
Castaneda says that while Belize's market may have taken a hit from OMICRON in early 2022. It started to re-bound in mid-February at a higher rate than projected.
He also gave an optimistic view of the numbers that could come with November's high season.
Abil Castaneda, Director of Quality Management and Capacity Development
"We were seeing very good numbers going up to December of 2021. We did have a dip due to the OMICRON wave that happened especially in North America and here in January, February but after like mid-February we began to see a rebound once again going back under the same type of trend line and by end of December last year we were near to somewhere between 70 to 80% of pre-covid numbers in terms of the trend line and we began to see that again in February, March, and April. Now, with Easter i the final boost that the industry is used to and currently as I was mentioning earlier we are seeing a bit of decline right now but it is the usual decline both in overnight and cruise. Now, looking forward to the new season that is coming around, that is looking very very healthy for us from the Cruise sector for instance that I coordinate Cruise lines are mentioning that they would be anywhere between 90 to 100% recovered and back in the new season that is coming our way. So, that is good, based on the airlift that we are seeing also and just overall demand for the overnight sector we also expect to be very close to the, if not 90 around 80% of the pre-covid numbers or even better but those are conservative and I think that we are recovering much faster than what the experts were saying before."
