Tourist industry urged to buy Belizean
One benefit of increased tourism is its expansion of the market for local goods and services. To ensure that the tourism industry recognises this need, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries held a meeting this morning with key tourism officials. According to the Ministry’s C.E.O., Sergio Garcia, a number of measures will be put in place to address the needs of all concerned.
Sergio Garcia, CEO, Ministry of Agriculture
“Basically, we are asking the tourism industry to support us in our Buy Belizean campaign. Secondly, we are trying to resolve some little constraints that they say they are having, in terms of producing quality products on the table for the tourist people.
It’s not really a problem of providing quality, it’s saying that there is not enough supplies for them. So what we are doing with the Vegetable Importers Association, we are providing a lot of local products. And what we cannot meet in terms of supplies, then we’ll allow the Vegetable Importers Association to bring them in for the tourism sector. But of course, they have to meet certain conditions, because we want to safe guard the health of the agricultural sector.
Basically, what we will do is we’ll improve the communication, they will provide us a list of their establishments, a list of supplies that they want, and also a list of their fishery products that they want. And from our end, we’ll see what we can get our farmers to produce or what we can supply locally, and then whatever shortfall there is, then we’ll import for them, because we also want to support their industry. The other aspect is that all of these lists of items will need to meet the criteria that we set out, in terms of agricultural health safeguarding. But, most importantly, we want the local industries to supply a quality that’s wholesome, safe and healthy for the tourism industry.”
It was also suggested that a survey be conducted to determine the quantity of fruits and vegetables various hotels require so the ministry can see what can be provided locally and what needs to be imported.
