And form Guatemala to Belize to Honduras. For the past two days we've been reporting on the Central America Travel Market event in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
And while we have been looking at it from the macro level - today our team in Honduras spoke to individual resorts and tourist interests who are making their pitches to large regional and global travel agencies, Jomarie Lanza reports:
On Day 2 of the Central American Travel Market we spoke to some of the Belize Vendors and service providers to see what they are offering and promoting to the Destination Management Companies. They say it all depends on what they are looking for, and how big a group they want to bring to Belize.
Norvani Santoya, General Manager, Blu Zen Resort
"It's our second year, second consecutive year, last year we were at El Salvador and this year we are at Honduras and we are offering a beah front experience representing Blu Zen Resort and Caye Caulker, it has been a very successful conference for us thus far we have had very good meetings with lots of agents that are very interested in doing business with us."
"Blu Zen, the Zen itself is what we are trying to offer to the clients, is the experience the holistic experience and pretty much what we are trying to do is a beachfront experience mixed with a zen feeling. People come to relax and enjoy the beach at Caye caulker peace and tranquility we have our spot that compliments the product that we are trying to represent."
"So we have a brand new product it is called Zenzi's hotel its going to be a 44 room hotel and it is also going to be available pretty soon as soon as next month November 8th is where we are planning the staff product and that product is meant to compliment what we are trying to offer at Blu Zen as well it is going to be high end, very nice hotel rooms"
"The Blu Zen currently we are offering condo units and Zenzi's is going to be hotel rooms."
Gerald Wolhers, Reservation Manager, Cahal Pech Village Resort
"We are here to promote San Ignacio and also our hotel start from all the activities and where we are located and all the tours and transportations services we offer at Canal Pech."
"Cahal Pech is a very large hotel in San Ignacio, very large a total of 73 rooms and we could accommodate groups, we could accommodate for single travelers and we do basically an all inclusive so if at any time a customer would like to do an all inclusive with Cahal Pech we cater for that service."
And for those in search of a bit more exclusivity, The Belize Barrier Reef Properties saw the event as a way to promote their newest investment, Magenta Caye, a luxury Private island
Felipe Magana, General Manager, Belize Barrier Reef Properties Ltd
"So at Belize Barrier reef properties we actually operate Brisa Oceano resort which is centrally located located in Placencia village and our new product that we are promoting is Magenta Caye which is a luxury private island located 6 miles in front of Placencia."
"Basically we have prepared out media kits we have been preparing for a couple of months now and we are offering for a mid tier product which is our Brisa Oceano resort which is basically we offer condos on the beach, we have 24 rooms that can be configured into studios, one bedroom, two bedroom or three bedroom condos that are right on the beach, we actually have one of the biggest beaches in Placencia area, we offer Volleyball, kayaks, paddle boards for our guests we have paramount adventures which is our tour company and this company is what we use to source the logistics for our two properties basically excursions and transfers and that sort of stuff, so we are offering package deals for them. Other than that we are trying to get the name out for our new property called Magenta Caye it is a luxury private island we actually have dedicated a lot of talent to develop this product. I have selected top talents from the different other properties to join us and our team there, we have some of the best chefs in the country, Anderson Morales that won the BTB master chef competition is with us, we have bar tenders that competed in Panama and won, our other chefs have been on private islands of this tier for the past ten years or so so that is the type of product we are trying to promote. We have gotten good feedback from the travel agents, DMC's and the tour operators that are around."
