Opening of craft show marks Tourism Week
It’s Tourism Awareness Week and for the next few days the major players in Belize’s biggest business will be highlighting the importance of their industry for the country’s development. Today official activities were focussed in Belize City where News Five’s Karla Vernon, formerly Heusner, found herself in the middle of a fair.
Karla Vernon, Reporting
With colourful tents and booths, visitors and students were invited to spend a ?Day in the Park? and become acquainted with local crafts and food products. In an effort to bolster this sector of the tourism industry, today the Belize Tourism Board, the Belize Business Bureau, and the Belize City Council signed a memorandum of understanding establishing the event as an annual arts and craft show.
Dr. Cardo Martinez, President, Belize Business Bureau
?Today is the culmination of an effort whereby all of you can see what is happening over there and I would go a little bit further than Mr. Nunez and ask you to please contribute and take something, because I checked and these are all Belizean made goods. Certainly the inputs are from abroad but they are locally put together, and that is what we need to consider.?
And putting the right inputs together to create attractive handmade souvenir items is what Carla Flowers does, stitch by stitch. You may recognise her creations from this year?s Carnival Road March.
Carla Flowers, Craft Seller
?My business is a small business. I do all crochet, cross stitch, embroidery, lone thread work and needlework I do.?
?I just started to work to start selling to the tourists, but most of the time its local marketing.?
Deanna Peyrefitte heads the Micro and Small Enterprise Project. This initiative is designed to make small businesses more efficient. It gets underway later this year, but was launched today in conjunction with the fair. Peyrefitte says while no grants or loans will be available, technical expertise is being offered through the support of the Inter-American Development Bank, the Belize Tourism Board, and the Belize Tourism Industry Association.
Deanna Peyrefitte, Dir., Micro & Small Enterprise Project
?We will have consultants going into the small businesses and looking at what they are currently doing, diagnosing what are their strengths and weaknesses, and producing for them an outline of what needs to be done to better themselves. There will also be the availability of more tailored technical assistance for those small businesses that are interested and willing to cost share. So it?s really geared at improving what?s being produced currently in Belize for sale to the tourists who are visiting our country.?
Ras I Gabourel has already begun enhancing his creative and marketing skills. He recently attended a course on bamboo crafts in Guatemala, sponsored by the Taiwanese Embassy. Gabourel says the forests provide artisans with all the raw materials they need, and give buyers peace of mind.
Ras I Gabourel, Bamboo Craft Maker
?This is a rain stick, a rain maker. It?s good for relaxation, meditation when you are under stress. Your children stress you out, or your boss you could relax and just make a sound and then listen to the sound slowly. I have to cut the bamboo, use it when it?s dry. I have to cut it three days before the moon or three days after the moon, so it could be properly dried.?
?I sell at the village of Gracie Rock, where we have a tourist attraction there for the tours on Mr. Gegg?s site and he welcomed me to sell on the site. I am now learning to do bamboo work, so I do with bamboo and I make stuff from cohune, make rings from cohune, you know.?
Wood carvings figured prominently at today?s craft fair. Among the most elaborate, are those made by a family of four artists who migrated to Belize from St. Lucia.
Malaika Meektishele, Craft Seller
?This is a stool out of mangrove wood. We have banana tree, she is preparing a meal, we have the breadfruit tree, and then she is with the mortar pestle and the coconut tree.?
Karla Vernon
?Where is your workshop??
Malaika Meektishele, Craft Seller
?We have our workshop at number eight Caesar Ridge Road and we work there. Also we do our exhibitions outside of tourist village, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.?
Deanna Peyrefitte
?We definitely know that we want more things that are indigenous to Belize. Tourists want to take back things that are made in Belize. Because there has been the comment that they buy things, but they are made elsewhere. And so they are looking for things that are true Belizean made products.?
Karla Vernon for News Five.
Other events for Tourism Awareness Week include the Social Studies Quiz competition for primary schools, visitor appreciation day at the Philip S.W. Goldson International Airport and Fort Street Tourism Village, marine and protected areas seminars, and the sixth National Tourism Awards.
