And moving onto the tourism sector, the industry has famously rebounded since the first year of COVID 19 in Belize, when it was forced to completely shut down.
We've gone from zero international arrivals to about 50% of where we were pre-pandemic in less than two years.
And the projections are that this number will only grow - but it's not going to get there on its own.
And that's why the Belize Tourism Board is trying to build on the momentum that Belize already has - and that's what gave rise to the BOOM Forum.
That event was held today at the Biltmore and saw the input of tourism stakeholders across the country. It gave them an idea of where we are and presented the vision of where we want to be. Courtney Menzies was there and has this story.
Ziplining through the jungles, climbing up ancient Maya temples, diving into the depths of the sea - these are only some of the adventures Belize boasts of. And while locals know what the country has to offer, the Belize Tourism Board has embarked on a journey to get the word out as far as it can go.
And today was just the start - BTB updated its stakeholders on the way forward at the BOOM forum - Building On Our Momentum - taking what is already a valuable product and transforming it in new ways.
Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism
"We have to take a wholistic approach on how we market Belize, we don't have huge budgets like other major destinations but what we have is creativity, what we have is passion, what we have is know-how and we've partnered with the right agencies for us to get the message out and we're utilising social media, we're using print, we're using traditional marketing efforts, PR, all of these things that we're doing, influencers, and so when you combine them together, that creates some level combustion for Belize and Belize is top of mind these days."
"We'll continue to have a discussion with the industry, to assess what is working and what is not and then we make the necessary adjustments and we continue to drive Belize forward in terms of tourism and the marketing of Belize. Tourism now represents, according to the economic development, almost 47% of GDP and so we take that responsibility very very seriously."
And BTB's not in it alone - they're working with two PR firms: The Zimmerman Agency in the US, Development Counsellors International from Canada, and Frontier Airlines.
And Cole Zimmerman explained about the strategy they want to use to take Belize's marketing to the next level - taking advantage of those tourists hungry for travel.
Cole Zimmerman, Zimmerman Agency
"Obviously the last two years have been a little bit of a rollercoaster with COVID coming and going and as that settles down, you're starting to get in the revenge travel phase and what we're doing to make sure we are capitalising that is meeting people where they want to be met, whether that's on mobile, whether that's on gaming, whether that's on streaming TV, we're making sure we're getting the Belize message out there and in front of those people in an enticing way. We also do things called conquest, we're going after competitive sect, going after Costa Rica, going after Dominican Republic, Mexico, making sure that when people are researching those, they're actually getting Belize messaging, hoping that we could control where they go and drive them to the destination."
"Belize is an easy sell, in general, but as we eluded to in the meeting, not everyone knows where Belize is, they don't know that you can get here from Atlanta in two and a half hours, they don't know you can get here from Miami in two hours, very short distance and it's relatively familiar since we're using the US dollars here, you use the English language here as well, people continue to want to look for travel but there's barriers that Belize doesn't have, and it's making sure that people understand that there aren't those barriers here."
And they'll be using BTB's "Grab Life" campaign to reel in tourists who are looking to tick off another activity from their bucket list.
Cole Zimmerman, Zimmerman Agency
"As far as future projections go, COVID in general has become more of a common cold, where people get a common cold every year, that's not hindering travel as much as it was a year and a half ago, the media's not focusing on it as much as a risk, it's more, people have been pent up and done a lot of domestic travel in the US last year and a half which is just driving two hours outside their town and maybe go on a mini hike, it's not Grab Life in Belize and I think that's really where the campaign for Belize is really strong, it's talking about grabbing life, it's talking about getting that bucket list travel and really enjoying life and making the most of it and you can do that here and not only can you do that in Belize, but it's not just one thing, you have over 1,000 different things that you can do in Belize from relaxing on the beach and taking a catamaran out to an island, scuba diving, from cave repelling, from doing all different things from jungle to sea, there's a wide variety of things you can do here in a short amount of time, you can only fly fifteen minutes and already be in Cayo District in the jungle or you can fly fifteen minutes and be in San Pedro on a beautiful beach, another fifteen minutes to take you to Placencia and Hopkins so a lot of things you can do on a small radius that you can do on a two day trip, a three day trip, a ten day trip and still get the experience that you're looking for no matter how long you're trying to be here in the country."
And while The Zimmerman Agency's PR team managed to reach 2.9 billion people last year, they've got new ideas to reach even more - one of which you might raise an eyebrow for:
Cole Zimmerman, Zimmerman Agency
"The Epic Elope is a new idea, it is making sure that people- right now, in general in the US everyone's kind of seeing the influx of the dollar in general with inflation but with that inflation one of the biggest things is weddings, when you think of weddings, it's like if I have to spend 50,60 thousand dollars on a wedding, and now that's going up to 80 to 100 thousand dollars to have a wedding, compared to I can come to Belize and spend 5-10 grand and have a epic trip that's an elopement trip where I can go do something incredible, keep in mind the elopement idea is not standing in front of a courthouse and getting married, it is Epic weddings where you can do things that are incredible that you can't do anywhere else in the world."
And for now, Minister Mahler said that the discussions continue to bring this vision to life.
