Minister Mahler: 2023 Expected to be a Bumper Year for Tourism

It’s been almost three years since the COVID-19 pandemic shattered the tourism industry. Thousands of people lost jobs, and some small properties had to close down. However, since the restrictions were lifted and the borders reopened, tourism stakeholders have been monitoring the recovery. Minister of Tourism and Diaspora Relations Anthony Mahler gave us a breakdown of the 2022 tourism stats, saying that the prediction is for 2023 to be a bumper year.

Anthony Mahler

Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism 

“In 2022, for overnight tourism, we were about seventy percent of where we were, so we did somewhere around three hundred and fifty overnight. The cruise were about fifty percent of where we were, and so that’s somewhere around six hundred and fifty thousand. But this year looks like it is going to be a bumper year, and it’s going to be closer to the numbers in 2019, so closer to five hundred thousand and closer to one point two million for cruise. We’ve had that discussion, and we have that understanding that the ships are much larger, and they have a problem tendering for those sizes of ships, and so you have Stake Bank being built and other developments on the table. And so it is going to take some time. I believe with Stake Bank coming on board soon that, we will be able to keep the numbers up, but it’s how you manage it.”

Reporter

“So right now, that’s not really a concern for the ministry?”

Anthony Mahler

“Well, it’s always a concern, but it is how you control the numbers. What we have done is we’ve reached out to smaller cruise lines and bigger yachts to be able to come to Belize as well.”

For perspective, the United Nations World Tourism Organization reported in November 2022 that international tourism was on track to reach 65% of pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022.