Belizean Traveller Campaign is Launched to Boost Domestic Tourism

With the borders and the international airport still closed, local tourism is being promoted across the country as a first step before international visitors begin making their way back to Belize. On May fifteenth, the B.T.B. launched its plan to have heads in bed as the tourism industry attempts to rebound from COVID-19. Here is News Five’s Duane Moody with a report.

Duane Moody, Reporting

As early as January, Belize began feeling the effects of COVID 19 as properties started receiving cancellations from international and local visitors. With over a month since a last positive case has been recorded in Belize, domestic travelling is now permitted and the Belize Tourism Board and its industry partners have teamed up to once again launch the Belizean Traveller campaign.

Jocelle Stephen

Jocelle Stephen, Marketing & Industry Relations Manager, B.T.B.

“Every year around June July, we launch a Belizean Traveller campaign because domestic tourism is important. We want to have heads in beds all year round, so we see the Belizean Traveller campaign as an important one in part of our marketing strategy.  In every country that has been impacted by this pandemic, the first step is local tourism before they move on to international tourism. That is because also even international travellers are more comfortable travelling within their own space first before they step out and resort back to international travel. So understanding that, we had been working behind the scenes for a while on what will be the best campaign to offer considering COVID-19. And so we came up with this year’s campaign which will focus primarily on stakeholder participation and promoting what stakeholders are offering.”

Belizebooking.com is a website that has been created to access all the great deals that Belizeans can take advantage of. You can also check out Belize Vacation and Belizean Traveller pages on Facebook for info on great adventure tours and activities that can be added to your stay from now until August of this year. Marketing and Industry Relations Manager Jocelle Stephens says that industry stakeholders, including properties and tour companies have dropped their prices significantly and the head tax is not being charged.

Jocelle Stephen

“This year’s campaign, we’ll be focusing on developing a micro site for our stakeholders to put on this website, promote their hotel, their rates and any kind of services they will be offering for local travelling. The website is already up; it is www.belizeanbooking.com and you can search for a desired destination and put in maybe Cayo or Placencia and it will pull up the hotels that are there. We had reached out to our stakeholders when we were working behind the scene and sixty-three of them have already come forward and said that they are going to be open and were sharing their rates with us and so twenty-three of them are already up on that micro site. We actually have prices that can fit various budgets and prices and so we do want to thank all stakeholders and hotels that have come forward and said we want to be a part of this cause we understand how important it is to rebuild domestic tourism.”

Now domestic tourism only contributes to ten percent of the revenue collected by hotels and resorts; the remaining ninety percent is from international tourists—overnight visitors and cruise ship passengers who disembark when these vessels call to port in Belize.

Jocelle Stephen

“We recently did a survey and the main reason for people not travelling was they didn’t have time or they didn’t have an interest. It really wasn’t the expense. Expense was one, but it wasn’t the immediate two, the first two. And that stood out for us because it showed us that people need to be aware of what they have. Our appeal to the Belizeans today is we are in this together and the more we spend locally, the faster we can recover because by spending locally, you are helping that business to regain footing, you’re helping them to expand again so they can start to rehire those who they may have let go.”

Duane Moody for News Five.