Travel Insurance No Problem to Tourists

Some quarters of the tourism industry had criticized the Belize Tourism Board for introducing mandatory travel insurance. For eighteen dollars U.S., it covers hotel stays and medical treatment of tourists who fall sick with COVID once they enter Belize. But less than two weeks after the implementation of the scheme, B.T.B. Director, Evan Tillett, says that more and more tourists are purchasing the insurance before they even land in Belize, and the long lines at the P.G.I.A. on Saturdays has very little to do with tourists buying insurance.

Evan Tillett

Evan Tillett, Director, B.T.B.

“I went back into my files and I saw photos in July when we had numbers increase in tourism and those long lines existed then. Of course the roll-out of the insurance has created some bottlenecks but as the time continues, obviously like rolling out any new plan, you tweak and fix while you move forward. We have seen the benefits of that since the fifteenth (of February). We have seen people a lot less are now purchasing the insurance when they come. The majority of the people are coming in with insurance. On the first day, the flights came in almost fifty-fifty, fifty percent having the insurance and fifty percent who didn’t.”