BTB announces semi-finalists for National Tourism Awards

laura esquivel-frampton

The Belize Tourism Board announced today that semifinalists in various categories for the Tenth National Tourism Awards have officially been nominated. This year, says the BTB, industry stakeholders will vote for their favorite hotels, restaurants, tour guides and environmental organizations.  In a press conference held at the Radisson this morning the BTB revealed the list of establishments, employees and others that are vying for the awards to be handed out at the annual industry presentation on June tenth.  The awards show has expanded to include thirteen categories, the newest addition being Destination of the Year.  Laura Esquivel-Frampton, Director of Product Development at BTB, told News Five about the selection process.

Laura Esquivel-Frampton, Director, Product Development, BTB

“We invited nominations from people in the industry as well as from the general public.  So we sent out email notices to everybody in our contact database as well as we did notices in the newspaper inviting people to go to our website and send in the nominees.  From there of course we screened all nominees to ensure that they were properly licensed and no major complains have come in about those organizations and then it really was the people who got the majority of nominations who ended up in our semifinals today.  We are honoring our stars and so it’s really those organizations that are giving us excellent service in the tourism industry.”

Last year’s winners include Hamanasi Resort in Hopkins as the Hotel of the Year, Hidden Treasures as Restaurant of the Year and Eworth Garbutt of the Inn At Roberts Grove in Placencia as Tour Guide of the Year.