And while we had reported on Monday that the budget for the International Food and Music Fest was in the millions - that was an error. The budget, as Minister Mahler clarified today - is actually 750,000 Belize dollars. He explained that it is the revenue that the concert makes which is projected to potentially be in the millions:
Hon. Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism
"I said at a press conference yesterday, the budget for both the music festival and the food festival which is combined, we have a budget of $750,000. Now, we believe that is going to be a revenue generating potential for the concert so it is going to offset what we can allocated to invest into this. We have to be able to compete internationally and so I see this as an investment in our musicians, I see this as an investment in our food component industry, it is very crucial that we help to create a platform or platforms for these things to be infused into the overall tourism product on a higher scale."
"The question was what economic activity would be generated from this, it could be in the millions of dollars, not the cost, if people come in, more people come in, they go on tours, they eat at restaurants, they sleep in hotels, they drink at bars, they buy crafts, they go all over the country, that is an injection of new revenue into the country and that is what I was talking about, it could be in the millions, we're doing the assessment right now so see what is the potential of this thing, it's the first time."
