Agricultural Production is Not Meeting the Demands of the Tourism Sector

Yashin Dujon

Earlier this week, a meeting was held to present the findings of an Agri-Tourism study of Ambergris Caye. The twelve-month study looked at agricultural produce that is consumed by the tourism sector. Now, for the first time in 2019, the tourism industry met its goals in exceeding half a million overnight guests and so the consumption patterns were looked at in terms of the demands on infrastructure, as well as supplies and raw materials. The study was conducted under a partnership between the Ministries of Agriculture and Tourism several areas were studied.  The data collected between September 2018 and August 2019 were shared.

Yashin Dujon, C.E.O., Ministry of Tourism & Civil Aviation

“We looked at the consumptive patterns over the entire year, to determine things like production numbers, sales value, seasonality, and then use that data to present to the folks in the room today with the hopes that we can improve our production. That we can tie the production in with the seasonal demand for the tourism sector as well as the local market. And we can look at providing more local goods within the tourism sector.”

Janel Hemmans

Janel Hemmans, Business Development & Investment Officer, Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation

“The business development unit at the Ministry of Tourism conducted a tourism consumption study for the period September 2018 to August 2019 to quantify the demand for the accommodation sector and the restaurant sector for our top twelve agricultural products. So we found that we were not able to produce as much so we needed to import a large sum of these items in order to meet the demand for the tourism market. Now the focus of this study makes us see where we are, or where our weaknesses are as it relates to both sector—the agriculture and the tourism sector—and the need to collaborate and work together to meet the needs of this industry and also to prevent leakages by producing more of the items needed to meet the needs or the demands of the sector.”