And the river park is one of multiple projects that the BTB is engaged in. This breathless succession of inaugurations and groundbreakings are clearly designed to sway voters but will they?
Well, according to Mahler, these projects aren't electioneering, and if the PUP does win, it's because of the collective team, not just the largesse of the BTB. He also added though that there are more projects Belizeans can look forward to.
Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism
"It's just a hard work of a bunch of people, you saw the campaigners there, a lot of people go into winning elections, so we're just playing our part and like I said to you before, these are just projects being rolled out in the natural flow of things. We have one on Friday in Succotz, we're going to do a hammock bridge over to Xunantunich and a Cultural Center which will just change the aesthetics of that area again."
"And we have some exciting stuff for the Marine Parade as well so we're trying to finalize the project to start there. As well, Cemetery Road is being paved, it's a main artery into it, that cannot be the first impression into Belize City when you come in by road, we have a 100,000+ people come by road through the borders and other parts so it is important for us to be able to invest in the marketing and PR but also in the training of our people and a part of our processes to establish a first ever tourism training institute in Belize and that will have branches all across the country so we have to bring our people up to the level that we can compete globally at the highest level."
