Belize Wins Big at 2015 World Travel Awards

Belize has picked up a pair of prestigious honors as an ideal tourist destination at the 2015 World Awards.  The Jewel won both Mexico and Central America’s Leading Beach Destination 2015, as well as Mexico and Central America’s Leading Destination 2015 for Placencia and Ambergris Caye, respectively.  Vice Chairman of B.T.B.’s Board of Directors, Einer Gomez, attended the awards ceremony in Bogota, Colombia and received the honors on behalf of the country.  The B.T.B. held a press conference this afternoon where Director of Marketing and Industry Relations Karen Pike explained how Belize was nominated in four categories.

Karen Pike

Karen Pike, Director, Marketing & Industry Relations, B.T.B.

“The 2015 World Travel Awards Latin America ceremony took place in Bogota, Colombia on Saturday, October tenth, 2015. Nominees were selected during a six-month period by the World Travel Advisory Committee. This consists of twenty-seven hundred media titles and influential tourism figure heads. The shortlist was then published and the global industry as well as travel consumers were asked to vote who they deemed were the best in each category. So after five hundred and eighty thousands votes were casted, Belize came out as winners. The significance is that winners, being Belize, would be able to show increase growth and profitability after the win. So what we are seeing is that we can demonstrate that he vote for the best categories bringing in Belize as winners will then contribute to higher tourism arrivals in years to come. The nominees were selected by the World Travel Advisory Committee so they actually shortlisted Belize as one of the finalists. This is a first time in the twenty-two-year history that the most highly coveted travel Oscar for Mexico and Central America’s Leading Destination for 2015 was awarded to Belize, Ambergris Caye. Over six hundred and ten thousand travel industry voters took part so this is a wonderful achievement and will no doubt results in an increase business and growing tourism industry here in Belize. What we have seen is moderate growth in tourism for overnight arrivals, but I would like to mention that also noteworthy was that Ka’ana Resort was named Mexico and Central America’s Leading Boutique Resort and nominees also for Belize included Blancaneaux Lodge. There were also four categories for Belize and those winners were Victoria House, which was named Belize’s Leading Hotel for 2015; El Secreto was named Belize’s Leading Resort 2015; Cayo Espanto was named Belize’s Leading Spa Resort and Hopkins Bay Resort was named Belize’s Leading Villa Resort.”