The Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry today awarded four of its participants who stood out in this year's Expo Belize MarketPlace 2023. The Chamber of Commerce celebrated them by recognizing the designers of the top business booths. Jomarie Lanza attended the award Ceremony and has this report for us.
The winners of this year's "Expo Belize Market Place 2023" hosted by the BCCI were celebrated and awarded today, after careful selection by a panel of judges. More than 11,000 people visited the two day expo and took advantage of the deals, food, art work and services offered by participating businesses.
4 categories were awarded along with other tokens of participation and recognition to stakeholders.
Kory Leslie, Public Relations Manager, BCCI
"This ceremony was an opportunity for us to acknowledge some of the exemplary participants at the expo as well as giveaway our bigger gate prize raffle awards that were sponsored for the events. Basically what I've been saying throughout the ceremony is that this is a way to bring things back to the businesses because in the planning stage it's all about the businesses and then in the middle it becomes more about the visitors who come to the expo giving them a good experience and ensuring that they are safe and having a good time so the ceremony is a way to not only close off everything but also a way to bring it back to those who showed the event support from start to finish."
"We had the best booth competition, and there were four categories, we had the best overall booth most outstanding youth entrepreneur the best micro booth and then there was an added category, which was the favorite booth award, and that was voted on by the public so we had a panel of judges who are also here today we acknowledge them, and gave them some certificates for participation. But they were looking for creativity, innovation, and professionalism mainly with these booths. And those who were scored or judged, they had an opportunity to sign up so it wasn't an overall thing, because in the past everyone could be considered for the award, but it was too large. And some participants actually weren't interested in the whole judging art of it. And now exhibitors get to sign up and participate. And then the panel visits the booth and does their tallying right there."
The Best overall Booth was awarded to the CK girls, The Best micro Booth went to Ashlee's Baked creations, and the favorite booth, voted on by the people, was awarded to Belize Electricity. We got a chance to speak with the winner of the Best Entrepreneur category, Abigail Bood, who won for her jewelry making business called " Hey Abbz"
Abigail Bood, Hey Abbz Jewelry
"So Hey Abbz is a jewelry making business. We are about 2 years old, January will make us officially 2 years old. We make and sell handmade jewelry all of gold filled material gems and pearls and it has been a pasión of mine from childhood and I was in the working field and I just decide to follow my dreams here in Belize and that's why I decided to leave my previous occupation and now I'm pursuing Hey Abbz full time."
"So this is Hey Abbz second year participating at the Expo. Last year was our first time and I mean we learned over the years and so we plan accordingly and we were on the opposite side so we just tried to relocate this year. We try to take into consideration where we were what we did last year and this year we just try to do better and be better. But this is our second time coming out and we plan to be here at all the rest of the expos BCCI host's."
Notably, our track of expo attendance show that attendance has been steadily declining. This year's event had a reported 11,000 visitors, while 2022 had 13 thousand, 2019 had 12 thousand, and 2018 had 13 thousand, and 2017 had 14 thousand. And in 2013 for example, there were 19,000 people attending. All numbers are reported by the Chamber of Commerce.
