Almost 3 Dozen B.T.B. Employees Take Termination Packages

The tourism sector has suffered a trashing from the halting of cruise visits, the closure of businesses and the locking off of all ports of entry to Belize. Since last week, the Belize Tourism Board shaved off about one-third of its employ, with set package agreements for them to be able to brace for the bleak weeks and months ahead, courtesy the novel coronavirus.  Director of Tourism Karen Bevans, who has spent much of the past week in meetings with the employees from the Board’s various departments, says that thirty-five of the employees whose jobs have been rendered redundant by COVID-19 were offered decent “separation packages” and that thirty-three of the thirty-five of them accepted theirs. She said that some of the employees have been working for as many as twenty years, and that all of them, even those who have fewer than five years, were given severance pay of two weeks’ salary for each of those years, plus notice pay, along with three months’ salary and pension for those who were due pension. Only two employees did not accept the package, preferring to take the risk and stay on with the remaining sixty-five employees who will take a salary cut.  B.T.B. has also moved all of its operations into one building at the corner of South and Regent Streets to curtail on security and utility expenditures.