Cruise Tourism Policy Being Revised, Five Years Later

Five years have passed since the Belize Tourism Board revised its Cruise Tourism Policy. With the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, B.T.B. says the time has come to address the gaps within the tourism industry. This morning, cruise tourism stakeholders gathered in Belize City for a national cruise tourism policy planning workshop to update the current policy. Those in attendance included tour operators, cruise port representatives, archaeologists, and members of the Protected Areas Conservation Trust. Evan Tillett, Director of the Belize Tourism Board, says the workshop was designed to engage stakeholders on areas that require strengthening and improvement within the industry.

Evan Tillett

Evan Tillett, Director, Belize Tourism Board

“Today’s event is definitely about addressing the gaps within the cruise tourism industry. The last review of this policy was done in 2017 and so the dynamics have changed. We have gone through a pandemic. The ships they are building are bigger ships and so you have birthing facilities being built and so all these things were not addressed in the previous policy. So, today we expect that we will move along the process of developing a new cruise tourism policy that will guide us for the next ten years, up to twenty thirty two. The pandemic basically stopped tourism in a sense. So we have to look at things that will mitigate that from happening in the future. During the pandemic we were listening to the doctors, the Ministry of Health, and we have a very close and dynamic relationship with them. So, the policy will definitely include some aspects of what the health department, the Ministry of Health will help to guide. We are not the experts, they are. I definitely think a meaningful policy will emerge. Because you have the key stakeholder in the room that will definitely add to piecing together or putting together the policy that will guide us for the next ten years.”