Belize City’s New Brand is Launched

On Wednesday, we showed you Mayor Darrell Bradley and the Belize City Council parading through the streets of the Old Capital bringing awareness of a brand for the city. Well today, a soft launch of the new brand, developed in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank, was held at the Biltmore Plaza this afternoon. The initiative, which is expected to be fully realized over a five-year period, will allow for businesses and stakeholders across the Old Capital to brand their products as that of Belize. It’s a unique tool to market the city as a tourist destination and not an in-transit point.

Marilyn Ordonez

Marilyn Ordonez, Director of Finance, Belize City Council

“This study is really to see how we can utilize this study to improve Belize City. So the branding aspect is to market Belize City, position Belize City so that we can perhaps make Belize City a tourist destination rather than just an in-transit point for tourists because we have seen or affiliate that we find tourists come in and they pass through and just a few stay in perhaps just to do business. So we can change that because Belize has a lot to offer. And so the IDB has given us this opportunity to brand our city. We had consultations with the youths, dancers, professionals, artists, the schools, a variety of persons to look at what it is that Belize City represents to the public. Some of the challenges, we hear it every day…as a matter of fact, I heard when Channel Five mentioned about the brand before they introduced it…they said that the perception of Belize City is that it is crime-ridden, we have the separation of north side, south side. Things like that and we really need to change that perception. The brand that we have is vibrant, it brings out energy; it reflects the water, it reflects the culture, the people and so we are expecting that the businesses can use it to put on their products, to market themselves and include our brand.”