Tourism executives meet in Belize City on regional policy
Today officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Cooperatives, and the Belize Tourism Industry Association gathered in Belize City as part of an overview of the Mesoamerican Cruise Tourism Industry survey. According to the organisers; tour guides, local hoteliers, tour operators, and government representatives have to work in tandem to: one, identify common problems, and two, come up with practical ways to promote economic development while protecting the country’s natural resources. Janelle Chanona reports.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
According to industry insiders, certain standards do exist within Belize?s tourism sector. But in the pursuit of the almighty dollar, environmental impacts quickly take a back seat.
Noel Jacobs, Regional Director, MBRS
?One of the things coming out today is carrying capacity issues, how those are determined, whether they are determined based on the environmental carrying capacity, whether they are based on the capacity to monitor the number of visitors, whether they are based on economics. We are more seeing across the four countries that instances where these capacities have been determined, they are more based on economics.?
Regional Director of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System project, Noel Jacobs, maintains current laws and policies are being designed and implemented without the facts.
Noel Jacobs
?The problem is I don?t believe we are doing either, and so I think?at least in my mind?one of the things we need to be doing urgently is to quickly come with a systematic monitoring programme to measure directly the impact of tourism. There are environmental monitoring activities going on, but not necessarily the impact of tourism as such but more environmental impacts in general. And so among that, it?s very difficult to isolate which of those impacts are in fact caused by tourism or caused by other things. So there needs to be a systemic monitoring for tourism specific activities that will allow you the baseline that you need upon which to make a decision and to be safe in saying, you know what tourism in Goff?s Caye or any other area has created X amount of impact because I have the data.?
Today partners in the industry hope that by using a strong regional voice, calls for a dynamic enforceable tourism policy will be heard in the corridors of power.
Mike Heusner, V.P., Belize Hotel Association
?We have to have teeth otherwise those who normally obey the law will obey the law, and those who like to run against the law or break the law will be doing it. Sometimes we say we also have to police ourselves, or police our own industry and nobody wants to tell the other operator what to do or what not to do. And I think we need to have a good face to our visitors, whether overnight or cruise tourists; that our operators are not fighting with each other or we are not fighting with the government or even fighting with the law. I think when tourists?when it?s explained to tourists that these are good practices, whether it be law or just a policy or an individual operators policy, when we explain why we are doing certain things, I think they respect it.?
Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.
According to organisers, similar events have already taken place in Guatemala and activities are scheduled for Mexico and Honduras next week.
