But what about the 8.6% drop in visits we saw for the month of September? Tillett stressed that external factors outside of their control contributed to this.
Evan Tillett, Director of Tourism
"September traditionally is one of the slowest months or the slowest months of the entire calendar. And that has been traditional. But there is also some effect in terms of the US Immigration posture policy that affects the travel back and forth. Some people don't want to travel because they don't know if they will be able to get back into the US so that definitely had an effect."
Reynaldo Malik, President, Belize Hotel Association
"Vacation is not just, the cost of a vacation does not only include the cost of a hotel there is also the cost of travel, and so when the airlines in my option do not cooperate with the destination in terms of lowering the cost in the shoulder seasons then it is going to be a challenge for folks that are already in most of them coming from a market that is facing economic uncertainty or uncertainties so when you go through the shoulder months with airline rates that are still upwards of 650, 700, 800 US round trip then that in itself is always going to pose a challenge it then falls, the burden then falls on the shoulders of the private sector of hotels, the tour operators etc to push our prices down even more."
