Tourism figures up, up, up

A few weeks ago we reported the preliminary figures but now the numbers are official. 2003 was by far Belize’s biggest year ever for tourism. Tourist arrivals at the Philip Goldson International Airport increased by seventeen point two percent over 2002 while arrivals at Belize’s other entry points rose by eleven point one percent. And if those statistics sound too good to be true, there is ample corroboration in the form of hotel taxes. Based on those collections, total room revenues for Belize’s hotel sector reached seventy-eight point nine million Belize dollars, a whopping increase of nearly twenty-nine percent over the previous year. While much of that growth can be attributed to better collection methods and higher room rates, it still amounts to some very good news.

And land based tourism is not the only part of the industry with bragging rights. In 2003 Belize welcomed over five hundred and seventy-five thousand cruise visitors, an annual increase of around eighty percent. The trend is expected to continue in 2004.